Dangerous Amateurs
by RetroFrost36
Summary: Professionals are predictable, it's the amateurs that are dangerous. So it follows that giving (semi)normal people the strength, speed, and abilities of warships will turn them into an unstoppable force. At least in theory, in practice the effectiveness is much more dubious, but sometimes a warm body is all that's needed to hold the line. Rated T for language
1. Chapter 1: Armed, Ignorant, and Angry

**Chapter 1:** **Armed, Ignorant, and Angry**

Title: Dangerous Amateurs

Author's Note's:This is a story I've had ruminating for a while, so I figured I'd take a swing at turning it into something for people to enjoy. So let's see where this goes. Enjoy.

* * *

 **Mitchell**

I was pretty much fucked. Fucked, up shit creek without a paddle. The bill for all the good luck I've experienced came due and it wasn't in the form of a totaled car or a broken bone. No I was probably going to die soon and it was all my goddamn fault.

To understand why I was going to die, one would have to replay the chain of events that had lead me to the precipice of death. It all started in the fall semester of my junior year at MIT. Now mind you I wasn't one of those really really smart kids, you know the kind that are able to do differential equations in their sleep or memorize every single chemical interaction in the Krebs cycle in 15 minutes, but I was damn good at computer science along with being decent in math, electronics and mechanical engineering. The important point of this information was that I was pretty well suited to my field, so combining that with a decent work ethic I was able to open up a lot of doors.

One of which was a study abroad opportunity unfortunately only two places had the right selection of classes, one was in London and the other in Tokyo. Now a fun fact about me, I love to ski, camp, and hike. I was raised in Colorado, so these were things I held near and dear to my heart. The difference between London and Tokyo is that it's much easier to get to ski mountains in Honshu or Hokkaido than it is to get from London to the Alps. That rather stupid reason was why I chose to go to Tokyo instead of London. The world changed about two weeks into my adventure abroad.

When the Abyssals rose out of the depths and began sweeping the seas clear, I was mildly concerned. When they swept aside the modern navies of the world with little effort, I was worried. When magical girls representing ships from WWII rose to defend humanity against the abyssal threat, I stopped caring. In retrospect this was a mistake, what I should have done was get my ass on a plane across the pacific back to the good ole' United States. Instead, I kept living life as I had planned, I went to classes, I took weekends to go skiing, and I ate lots of good food.

I wasn't being willfully ignorant, it's just that my life was already jam packed with other things for me to worry about like advanced mathematics or database design and optimization. To my small world, a war for control of the oceans didn't really matter, I was just fine with getting my degree and returning back to the Rockies. My parents worried, but I did the usual young adult shithead thing by completely ignoring their advice. I now wish I hadn't been so dismissive of their advice.

It was a normal Thursday. I had gone through my daily routine of classes, work, and socialization and now it was around 5:25ish. I was sitting in a coffee shop eating a breakfast sandwich, because if there one kind of comfort food that is always good is breakfast food. Anyway, the trouble began when my phone vibrated, now this alone wasn't a bad thing, it was the fact that everyone's phone began to either vibrate or chime the special tone that is reserved for emergency notices. Before I could open my phone all hell broke loose.

The world exploded into chaos. I found myself laying on the ground face first, my ears were ringing. The world seemed to slow down as I pushed myself up and looked around. The sight that greeted me was one of pure insanity. A good portion of the wall opposite to me had been blown in. Outside debris littered the streets as people fled. It was chaos. Grabbing my pack I dashed out of the building.

I wasn't ready for what I saw outside fire, destruction, and even a couple bodies that didn't seem to be moving. Black splotches raced across the sky, indistinct and strangely shaped. People seemed to be running away from the bay. I was about to the join the herd when something caught my eye, a bus had crashed into a building and was covered in debris, but a hand was sticking out of the debris and was waving. There must have been survivors there! Looking around I saw no one else even giving a glance to the crashed bus, either no one noticed or no one cared. They had no one to help them.

I wanted to run, I really did. No one would know or could blame me for running away, no one would ever know. I could run away and live. Nobody could blame me for running, except for me, big dumb me. I began to fight my way through the crowd.

As I navigated my way through the crowd one of the black splotches dove towards me, as it got closer I was finally able to identify it, it was one of the Abyssal fighter planes. I had seen a couple on the news, and now one was diving right towards me. As it got closer I could make out another thing about it, it had a large bomb nestled to it, a bomb that looked aimed right at my face. Before I could even begin to say my goodbyes, the fighter disintegrated into a cloud of debris as another aircraft shot by.

My savior was a plane that sported two red dots on the wing tips, it was a shipgirl plane! The aircraft waggled its wings and sped off back towards the bay, where splotches of black, white and green danced above the water. If I squinted I thought I could even make out figures on the water, but another explosion brought me back into reality.

It took me an unnervingly long time to get the crashed bus. The waving hand was still there, I climbed up the rubble pile and took it. It jolted at first, but then relaxed. I let go and the hand stay there. The bus itself was covered in concrete and rebar chunks of varying sizes, some basketball sized some the size of car doors. I wasn't able to lift the larger chunks, but I could easily throw the smaller items off to give me leverage to move the large chucks away from the place where the hand was sticking out. I worked furiously, and after a good 5-10 minutes of furious work I was able to drag away the last big piece of concrete that was covering the area around the arm.

Moving it away I looked down to see several faces all looking up at me. The bus itself had been covered in rubble but inside the frame had held and all the passengers seemed alive. There was a small pocket outside one of the buses windows that had formed and that was where the hand-waver had been. They began to speak to me in Japanese, but I hadn't learned that much in my time in the country. I did know one phrase.

"My Japanese is not good," I said to them as I reached my hand down. Some stopped speaking, others kept speaking, and one business man started to speak in english.

"There is a boy with a broken leg, and several elderly," he said.

"Let me get out some of the stronger folks, and then you can help bring them up to me," I replied back as I helped a teenager climb out of the hole. The passengers of the bus evacuated quickly with my help, and the businessman helped me lift several elderly out and then a young child whose leg seemed to bent at an odd angle. He was sniffling but I was able to get him out of the hole and hoist him onto my back. The businessman was the last to climb out of the hole and onto the rubble pile.

"Where should we go?!" He asked me.

"I saw a bunch of people running that way," I pointed down the road. "All I know is that we need to get away from that!" I pointed towards the bay, where the raging battle had crept closer to shore.

"Good idea," he responded before saying something in Japanese to the group of people the had been fished out of the bus. The group affirmed before they began to make their way inland with all due haste. I followed them. I was panting and wheezing as I struggled to carry the kid on my back and keep running with the group. I had drained myself rescuing them, but if I focused on putting on foot in front of the other, I could make it. At least I thought so.

I had been making good progress hobbling forward with my cargo, so much progress that I began to think about what I would need to do in the future to be safe and I failed to notice a piece of rubble. This piece of rubble tripped me up and sent my sprawling to the ground, I heard my passenger let out a cry of pain. The rest of the group had already disappeared from my vision but the businessman had been looking back at me and when he saw me fall he began to step towards me, but then his face twisted into a mask of absolute terror and he stumbled back. Twisting around, I saw another one of those fighter flying towards me, bomb glinting in the sun.

For a moment I thought the aircraft would explode like its fellow had before, but this one was luckier. It dodged the fire of a fighter that tried to intercept it, then released the bomb from its belly. It only took me a moment to realize that the bombs path was straight for me, I was fucked.

I watched the bomb hang in the air as it fell towards earth. I thought my life would flash before my eyes, but apparently that was just another lie Hollywood told the public. Now the chain of events in my inauspicious death were complete all that was left was for me and the poor kid was the bomb to fall and turn me into a nice piece of modern art. Time seemed to have slowed as I waited death, each heart beat taking an eternity.

Things became strange when this slowed time continued to slow to a point where it seemed like time wasn't moving at all. When my vision began to close in I guessed it was my body finally giving into shock, I accepted my death. I had lived a decent enough life and even managed to save a couple people, I was happy. My vision went black.

I was annoyed when I woke up to find myself not dead, but sitting in a chair. In front of me stood a woman with curly brown hair and the deepest blue eyes I had ever seen on a person. She gave me a smile.

"Welcome stranger," she said in a voice to melodic and nice that it almost calmed me to my core, almost.

"Am I fucking dead yet?" I asked a tinge of annoyance leaking into my voice. She surprised me when instead of looking offended by my rudeness, she started to laugh. She laughed so hard she fell out of her chair howling in laughter. I wanted to be angry, but I was only confused. It took her several minutes to get her laughing under control, but eventually she composed herself and got back into her chair.

"No, your not dead," she said in between light chuckles. This confused me, because I distinctly remembered that I was about to be turned into a red mist. Seeing my confusion she continued.

"In fact, you are very much still alive, you are still staring dumbly at a bomb that is about to kill you, but right now you are not dead," she said.

"So what is this then?" I cut in before she could elaborate.

"I have an offer for you, if you take it you won't die," she stated flatly. I was stunned for a second, but the gears in my head began to turn and several things became apparent.

"What's the catch?" I asked immediately.

"Well to be frank I want you to become a fleet girl," she said. That I did not expect, I kind of expect giving first born child or maybe an eternal life of servitude for evil, but becoming a fleet girl? That didn't make any goddamn sense.

"What?" I croaked.

"In short, while nations such as Japan, Germany, or even Italy have managed to summon fleet girls, nations like the US have not. The reasons behind this are complicated, but it can be simplified to the fact that the method that works for Japan and others doesn't work that well with some navies such as the American navy. However, I have found a workaround to the problem. Instead of summoning an independent soul and body whole cloth, you can instead give a spirit to a person so that person may become the spirit of the ship. Basically, I want to give a person the ability, traits, and memories of a ship, but instead of summoning an independent body to embody those aspects, I will instead give them out as a sort of tool or weapon." I must have still be looking a little confused to her explanation so she added.

"To use a more modern metaphor the difference is that one is building a robot and giving a person an exosuit, one is a independent entity and the other is a tool to be used by the original human occupant." That made perfect sense. I nodded.

"So basically, you'd give me the ability of a fleet girl, but I'd still be me?" I asked. She clapped her hands.

"Yes! That's it exactly! You'll also gain my soul and memories," she said. That one bit worried me.

"Wait back up, when you mean soul and memories do you mean like as a dual occupant or more like overwriting my original soul and memories?" I asked.

"No no you won't be overwritten, and it wouldn't be like an independent person is also living in your body. Instead imagine it as being both me and you at the same time, but it's you. So in essence I will be with you, but you Mitchell Wainwright will still be you," She said.

"So basically, you want me to become a fleet girl and start fighting?" I asked.

"Yep."

"Wait, if I accept this and become a fleet girl does this mean I'll become a girl?" I asked worriedly. She laughed again.

"No, you won't have to worry about any drastic changes, there might be some small changes like you growing a bit so you can better channel the essence, but besides those you'll mostly remain the way you are," she replied.

"So, in short you want me to become a ship and start fighting," I said to clarify.

"I can't force you to fight, but from what I've seen motivating you won't be an issue," she said with a smile. Her smile did falter for a second and she added.

"I'm running out of time to explain things Mitchell, I'm going to need an answer now." she urged her eyes staring me down.

On the one hand I didn't want to die, but on the other fighting some magical aliens from the oceans didn't seem like a good use of my life. But, I also wouldn't have a life to complain about if I didn't accept. So that made the answer obvious.

"I accept," I spoke.

"I'm glad my choice of you was not misplaced. Now it is time to go. Good luck," she said as my vision began to blur again.

"What! Who are you and what's your name," I asked as I felt myself begin to go woozy. She smiled at the question.

"Nice of you to ask, my name is USS Midway CV-41. Oh, I also left you a little extra item that should help you along. Good luck Mitchell." My vision closed in again.

When I came to I was back in the street. The bomb hanging above me like an executioner's blade, just waiting to come down and put me out of my misery. The glacial pace of time began to speed up again, as I reacted by instinct. Raising my hand I pointed to the bomb, I wanted it gone. My body obliging me, the bomb exploded in midair. Looking down I saw myself covered in a golden light. This didn't worry me, I was Mitchell Wainwright, but I was also USS Midway. 45 years of memories flooded my head appearing as a jumbled mess, but I understood the meaning of them.

In my right hand was an M16, although where the sights should have been was a long flight deck, under the barrel of the rifle was a grenade launcher. Cover my waist and the edges of the flight deck were copious amounts of AA guns ranging from 5 inchers to 20mms. My belt also had loops for magazines and a pouch for the grenades. I was a goddamn badass. Looking around I saw the mouth of the boy and the businessman hanging open as the golden glow faded from me. I gave them a smile.

"Lets go kick some ass," I said before I turned to sprint towards the ocean. The pavement cracked around boots that looked remarkably like ski boots, but with little rudders parallel to the tendon, much like a sea kayaks rudder. It was a strange feeling, but I felt like both a person and a goddamn aircraft carrier. I eventually reached the seawall, hoping over the fence and dropping into the surf below. As my boots met the water I felt them bite into the water and begin to propel me forward. It was an odd feeling, and my human instincts were screaming at me that this was all wrong. Needless to say I was unstable at first, but I got the hang of it by pretending I was ice skating. I started to tear up the water.

As I sped towards the battle, I began to get a better look at what was going on, and it wasn't good. At the front, destroyers and light cruisers dueled their abyssal counterparts at knife length, battleships and heavy cruisers were slugging it out with their counterparts, and our carriers were getting hammered by abyssal air attacks. The carriers had little cover as what fighters they had were swamped by a deluge of bombers, the escorts of the carriers were trying their best to stem the tide, but it just wasn't enough. They needed help, and my dumbass was the cavalry

Raising my rifle I hammered off a burst that shot 60 fighters of some kind into the air. Order seemed not to be in their playbook as their formation devolved from well ordered into a blob of steel, nevertheless they sped off to aid the besieged carriers.

Loading another clip of fighters into the rifle I wondered why I had such a weird plane loadout. I didn't know shit about military planes, but something in me told me this was not the ideal composition. In theory I should be able to carry 137 aircraft although I never did, but right now I had a massive air wing of 120 fighters, and 4 bombers. This was a stupid loadout, but for some reason Midway had decided to give me this to start off with so I wasn't going to worry too much about it, unless it got my ass killed.

As my fighters closed on the carrier's, I got a better look at the carriers. It wasn't good. At least two were completely inoperable of either launching planes or landing aircraft, another two were heavily damaged and trying to stay alive, and the last 3 were dodging and weaving to avoid enemy attacks. Inbound was another strike group of abyssal aircraft that numbered at least 80 strong. In defense of the carriers was a measly 25 fighters and a couple destroyers. If that strike got through, then the carriers were as good as toast. It was going to come down to who ever got to the carriers first, the strike group or my fighters.

Fortunately, my fighters won the foot race. The mass of my fighters smashed into the mass of abyssal aircraft, splitting their attack formation up into vulnerable items that the defending aircraft of the other carriers pounced on. My fighters were sloppy in their fighting skills, but what they lacked in skill or quality they made up in quantity. The abyssal coup de grace had been foiled. This gave the defenders time to shoot down most of the enemy and evade the attacks of those that remained. After all the stragglers were mopped up, my fighters proceeded to orbit the friendly carriers and swat any incoming attacks. A side benefit was that my distraction had given me time to close the distance and join the group of carriers.

"Halt! Who are you!" A destroyed yelled at me, pointing her main gun straight at my chest. The carriers and their escorts turned to face me, the escorts moving up through the formation to point their weapons at me. It was kind of unnerving.

"Whoa Whoa!" I put my hands up in gesture that I hope showed I didn't mean any harm.

"I'm the guy whose aircraft just saved your asses. USS Midway CV-41 at your service," I answered giving a little theatrical bow. From the reaction I got, it seemed like most of them didn't believe me.

"Don't come closer! How do I know your not an abyssal!" One of the destroyer yelled aiming her torpedos at me. That really scared me, it scared a deep down part of me that I didn't know existed until that very moment.

"Okay slow down here first off If I was an abyssal why would my air group have saved you, secondly I do-," I stopped talking as I felt the tingle in my head return, this time to the rear of me. I snapped my head back to see a wave of black approaching me, at least 100 aircraft were bearing down on my position.

"Fuck me! Incoming!" I yelled. Putting my left hand in my mouth I let out a shrill whistle and pointed towards the black mass. I accelerated to full speed and went hard to port, but my yelling and movements must have spooked a destroyer cause a salvo of torpedos passed right behind me as I finished my turn.

"Goddamnit! Don't shoot at me shoot at them!" I pointed to the mass of aircraft bearing down on me. Doing some quick mental math, I realized my fighters would get over me, but with not a lot of time to help defend me. That meant I'd have to mostly rely on my AA. Fortunately for me, the Midway class had plenty of it. Sixteen 5 inch guns all trained their barrels skyward. They opened up in sync, and the effects on the incoming aircraft were devastating. At least 5 aircraft exploded in the first volley, and more kept dropping as my guns kept firing. The formation began to split up making my 5 inches less potent, but soon the enemy was in range of all the 40mm Bofors which began to open up. More enemy aircraft started to be splashed, but it wasn't enough to stem the tide of aircraft that poured down on me. I was starting to get a little worried, if even a dozen enemy aircraft made it through, they would be able to work me over badly. My fighters were still closing, but they wouldn't make it in time to stem the first wave. For the second time that day, I came to conclusion I was going to die.

That was until the flak of the destroyers tore into the abyssal aircraft. Then the white and green aircraft of the carriers sped into my flak and began to cut down the stragglers, these measure bought my fighters enough time to join the fray and by then it was over for the abyssals. It only took a small amount of time for all the aggressors to be driven off or shot down. I was not going to die today. One of the carriers came up to me and held out her hand.

"It's nice to have you on our side Midway-san, I'm Akagi." The name Akagi triggered several memories that finally clicked into place. Akagi was the carrier that was sunk at the Battle of Midway, and was one of the more famous carrier ship girls.

"Nice to meet ya Akagi," I took her hand and shook it. "So what can I do to help?" I asked as my eyes swept the field.

"Our main target has been a super dreadnought and a carrier princess over there. But we've been forced on the defensive, and don't have any weapons to handle her. Hiryu, Soryu, Shokaku, and Kaga have been badly hit on their flight decks, leaving Zuikaku, Taihou, and I to fight the remaining aircraft. We must strike the enemy before they can launch another strike," She said calmly.

"I think I can help with that." I say as I load a new clip of aircraft. I launched another group of 60 fighters, as my old group of fighters began to start landing on the flight deck. However, fighters weren't going to win this battle, we needed to take out their carriers. That's when I reached into my pouch where my grenades were placed. Pulling out one, I saw a symbol that sent a chill up my spine. It was a black and yellow circle with a symbol in the middle. I loaded the grenade into the launcher and fired. A single twin engine aircraft came out, in its bomb bay rested a very special payload a Mark 15 nuclear bomb.

"I'm going to attack the enemy carrier with what bombers I have. My fighters will cover whatever bombers you guys have left," I said. Aircraft from Akagi, Zuikaku, and Taihou all formed up with my aircraft. The 121 strong force formed into a spear that drove towards the Abyssal carrier princess. Of course she wasn't going to take this lying down so she launched as many interceptors as should could to try and blunt the spear that was driving towards her. Almost 100 fighters rose to face our force. The fighter escorts we provided did their best, but they were overwhelmed by the sheer amount of aircraft trying to destroy their charges. This combined with flak from the enemy fleet began to take its toll on our formation. Our bombers began to fall out of the sky with worrying speed.

When our force was in sight of the enemy carrier, we had only a meager 6 bombers and 25 fighters left in the formation, the rest were either fighting for their lives with abyssal fighters or were in the sea. However, the important twin engine bomber still was aloft, it looked like we had a chance to actually do some damage.

These hopes were snuffed out when a group of 20 abyssal fighters came out of a cloud bank and pounced on the remaining aircraft 4 bombers went spiraling down in flames. It was now or never for my bomber. It opened the throttled and engaged its trump card, an inlaid turbojet engine. The bomber jumped forward as its speed rose above that its fellow aircraft as it sped towards the target zone. This extra boost of speed saved the bomber as the last allied aircraft was blown out of the sky by flak. Abyssal fighters tried to catch up to the twin engine bomber, but in a footrace its turbojet engine gave it the edge it needed to leave its pursuers in the dust.

The bomb bay doors of the aircraft opened revealing a single massive bomb as it payload. For a moment, time seemed to slow to a crawl. A single aircraft delivering a weapon that had the course to change the tide of a war. The bomb fell out of the bay and the bomber dove and sped away at max thrust. As the bomb fell a thought came to my mind, at first two nuclear weapons had brought this nation to its knees, and now one was going to rescue it from oblivion, how ironic.

I think mankind had mostly forgotten the power of the atom. In that moment, I think we were all reminded why splitting the atom was such an epoch shift for humanity. The mushroom cloud billowing over the water was an image that was burned into my mind. I'm told that the nuclear blast obliterated both the princess and several battleships around her, with their heavy hitters neutralized their destroyers and cruisers were easy pickings for the rest of our fleet. What had seemed like certain defeat for humanity had turned into a decisive victory. I did my part valiantly by passing out after landing whatever of my aircraft had survived the melee. Ironically, the destroyers who had almost killed me with their torpedoes were the ones who kept me from drowning and carried me back to the naval base. I knew none of this at the time as I was locked back into my head.

"Sooooo," I trailed off as I sat in a chair across from the woman who was now in apparently in me or in my soul or something to that effect.

"Good job on the nuclear strike, you managed to really make quite an entrance, and probably violate the several treaties banning using nuclear weapons, the UN won't be happy hearing that," she said said with a smirk.

"Yeah great, I hope I don't get a strongly worded letter in the mail. Anyway, there's a lot of details you haven't filled me in on that are now important since it seems like I'm not going to die today," I shot back.

"Oh relax, we'll have plenty of time to hammer everything out. For now why not relax? You've just managed to save Tokyo and not die in the process. I'd say this a time for celebration," she replied.

"Look, I get you wanna play this whole aloof thing up to the max, but I just detonated a nuclear weapon. I feel like I should be a little more concerned about the hammer that's going to drop down on me when I wake up," I sniped back.

"And I'm saying you shouldn't worry that much, look you just saved everyone back there. You are a hero, and also an asset for humanity. You need to realize that you are probably the most valuable person in the defense of humanity at this point. So chill the fuck out, you need to be on your game soon to deal with the all the questions that are going to be thrown your way. So I'm gonna give you the answers you need to be able explain why a 20 year old college kid became the best beacon for humanity's survival. So shut up and listen."

"When did you become so flippant?" I asked.

"When I merged with you, dipshit. Now I'm a reflection of you." She shot back.

"Wait does that mean I'm just talking to myself?"

"In a sense yes, but now just shut up and listen. This is going to be important." Midway said to me, before she launched into a speech.

In summarization, I was a ship's spirit incarnate, but instead of being just a ship I was also a human at the same time. The reason this happened was because it was easier for some ships to join with an already living human rather than to be summoned whole cloth. This was due to the fact that the national character of some armed forces was different, the American one was heavily understood to be a citizen army. Thus, it was easier for these tools of battles to put themselves in the hands of ordinary citizens who were willing to fight, rather than rise out of the aether and be entities on their own. The path for finding this had been hidden until Midway found it, thus we could expect many more American ships to start appearing paired with regular citizens. She also hypothesized that we would start seeing more ships from other countries, since they now also had access to the new pathway. As long as there was a pool of willing people to fight, there would be new ships arising, the war had expanded from being a fight between humanities champions and the Abyssals to a full out conflict where humanity would play a pivotal role in combating the threat.

"This is going to be a massive pain in ass isn't it?" I asked her as she wrapped up her talk.

"Oh yeah, but it's either this or destruction. So what choice do we have?" She responded with a sad smile. I felt myself grow faint and the world went black again.

I jerked awake, and then slammed the top of my head into something hard and flat. I fell backwards clutching my head as it throbbed in pain. I managed to chain together quite the creative string of curses as I clutched my head. As the pain faded, I was able to glance around and notice the soldier sitting in the corner watching me and trying not to laugh. He saw me looking at him and he placed the book he was reading on a table nearby.

"Glad to see you awake. Can I get you a glass of water?" He asked. I noticed my throat was dry and I was able to nod a yes. He brought over a paper cup full of water and handed it to me. I snatched it and drank it greedily as it cool water soothed my throat. After I finished drinking I gave him back the cup

"Where the hell am I?" I asked.

"You are at Yokosuka Naval District, you were brought in after you passed out, do you remember what happened before that?" He asked.

"Yeah, I turned into a carrier and nuked some fuckers, or was that some kind of fever dream?" I replied. The soldier chuckled at my response.

"No, that is what happened. Let me say, you caused quite the ruckus, but don't worry about the right now. I have orders to bring you to the Admiral, so we can give you an orientation," he said. It was at this point I realized there was a problem, I couldn't feel my legs.

"Hey, uhh problem here. I can't feel my legs. Like at all," I stated.

This apparently was not what that soldier wanted to hear cause he went white and dashed from the room, a couple moments later a couple more soldiers were led into the room by a girl with pink hair who pushed along a wheelchair.

They interrogated me about my legs which I repeated I said I couldn't feel them at all. At this point the pink girl gave me a look over before saying I needed to be put into the docks. I was loaded into the wheelchair and then we were off to wherever the docks were. The pink hair girl started order the soldiers around to go talk to the Admiral. She introduced herself as Akashi, she said they had a plan to fix my legs, but it was going to hurt.

For my part in the matter I was calmly panicking and repeatedly asking if this was temporary and if I could "Please get my fucking legs working!" I'd say I was very composed during the whole affair. Eventually, I was brought into a building that look suspiciously like baths.

Akashi yelled that we were coming in before she burst into a room that was definitely a bath. In later examination, I should have noticed the multiple nude women in the room, but at that point I was in pure panic mode. She lead my wheelchair over to one tub and without ceremony tipped me into the pool of water face first. I fell into the pool and for a second I panicked that I wasn't able to breathe before hands grasped my shoulders and flipped me around before lifting my head above water. She stared at my face intently.

"Do you feel anything?" She asked with an intensity that kinda scared me.

"No, I don't think s-" I stopped speaking as I felt a tingly feel spread across my entire body. The tingling turned into a full blown numbness as my body went numb. I honestly can't say what I was thinking or doing during that time, due to the power of the experience. When the numbness began to fade, I felt different. I felt too big, and too lanky. Using what motor control I had at that point I was able to pull myself out of the pool and onto the tiled floor. My legs and feet were tingling, and were painful to wiggle, but I definitely felt them. I spent several moments on the ground panting before I was able to focus on the fact that my clothes were suddenly very constricting and tight, looking up I saw my feet, but everything seemed out of proportion and way too big.

"Well I'll be damned, looks like he grew at least half a foot," Akashi said.

"What the fuck was that?" I wheezed out. Akashi shrugged.

"If I had to make a guess, and I am guessing, because you are the first of your kind. But, your body might have been unsuited to containing the power, so it had to adapt," she said. That jogged my memory to what Midway had said about some small changes happening. I'd have to ask her if she was blind, because this was no small change.

"Let's get you out of here," Akashi said as I continued to lay panting on the ground. She and a soldier helped picked up me into a wheelchair that was now definitely too small for me and wheeled me out of the baths. I was brought back to my room where I was passed a change of clothes and a towel, I'd hate to say I had trouble changing, but my new longer limbs made all my movements imprecise and awkward. After having dried off I tried to walk, but my new legs buckled under me. I was secretly thankful when Akashi brought back the wheelchair. I was brought to a room that had three people in it conversing, who turned towards me when we entered.

"Here he is admiral and in mostly okay condition," Akashi said as she wheeled me into the center of the room.

"Thanks for your good work Akashi," one of the men said.

"Anytime admiral," she said as she left the room, closing the door behind her. Leaving me alone in the room with the three strangers. They looked at me, I looked at them. Two were clearly American, and the other Japanese.

"Soooooo? Is this where I'll get to sign away the rights to my story for a big fat movie deal?" I joked, hoping to break the awkward silence that had fallen over the room. The sitting american chuckled at my joke.

"No, this isn't for your movie deal. I'm Admiral Goto, I am the commander of all shipgirls in Japan," The Japanese man introduced himself.

"I'm Admiral Blackshear, I'm in command of the United States Navy program to summon shipgirls. This is," he pointed to the younger looking man to his side. "Captain Faulkner, he is the Navy liaison who has been working with Admiral Goto to help learn how to best use shipgirls." The captain nodded towards me.

"And how would you like to be referred to as?" Admiral Goto asked.

"Mitch works just fine for me," I answered.

"Interesting, so do you think of yourself as USS Midway first or Mitchell Wainwright?" Captain Faulkner asked.

"Well, when I was fighting I was thinking of myself as Midway, but now that I'm not in that form I guess I'm Mike. I'm not sure I have enough of a sample to say that I'll only have my human memories when I'm human and ship memories when I'm in the ship form" I answered truthfully. They seemed to nod at this answer.

"So how and why did you become a shipgirl?" Admiral Blackshear asked.

"First off, I'm definitely a man so the term shipgirl is a bit inaccurate. Secondly, it's a long story," I replied.

"We have time"

It took nearly two hours to explain everything that I knew about my transformation to the officers. They listened with laser focus and asked lots of questions, which I tried my best to answer in full. It was exhausting.

"So to conclude, it happened to you because you were willing to fight, and you were in the right place at the right time," Captain Faulkner reiterated.

"Yep," I said matter of factly.

"So we can also expect for more ships to appear, since Midway found the workaround to get summoned?" Admiral Blackshear asked.

"Probably, I can't give a 100% guarantee based on my conversations with Midway, but the current evidence would point to this outcome," I answered. The officers stewed on this information for a bit before Admiral Goto spoke again.

"Let's hope that the evidence is right, but now we must discuss your fate."

"My fate?" I asked confused.

"What will you be doing now?" Goto followed up.

"I'm going to fight, obviously. I mean it's not like I can go back to being a regular person anyway. So I might as well use what abilities I have to save as many lives as possible and end this thing quickly so I can go home. Plus, I doubt you guys would have given me much of a choice in the matter anyway," I said. The last comment causing them to wince a bit.

"It's good to hear that, we can hammer out the details of that another time. For now, I'm guessing you must be exhausted so you can go rest now, tomorrow we can get down to business. Is there anything we can do to help you get settled in?" Admiral Goto asked.

"Yeah, a couple things actually. I'm probably going to need to see a doctor considering the fact, I'm pretty sure I grew a couple inches an hour ago. Also I'm going to need some transport and help to go back to my apartment to get my stuff," I answered.

"That can be arranged along with a stipend for you to go get some new clothes if you've grown out of your old ones," Admiral Blackshear said.

"That would also be helpful."

"Mr. Wainwright, is it okay if I take you to the on base doctor or would you prefer one in Tokyo," Captain Faulkner asked as he stood up.

"I'm fine with a on base doctor, I'm pretty sure all the ones in the city are dealing with the injured from yesterday," I said. Captain Faulkner came around the large table and taking hold of my wheelchairs handles, wheeled me out of the office and started me off to what I assumed what the doctor's office. He silent for most of the journey, but once we were outside he spoke.

"You managed to impress both the admirals in there Mr. Wainwright," Faulkner said as he pushed me around.

"Call me Mitch please, I don't like formality all that much. Also how did I impress them, I just said what I thought?" I asked.

"You were articulate, you gave out what information you had, you didn't speculate beyond what the facts would indicate, and the fact is that you seem to be handling the situation with a steady hand and calm head. That's a way above the expectations for anyone else in your position," Faulkner answered.

"I'm no average joe, I'm used to stress and high expectations. I'm just doing what anyone else who had my circumstances would be doing," I replied.

"Even so, you're handling this quite well. If you can stay like this, you might even have a chance of seeing this war through till the end. I think we all can hope for that," Faulkner trailed off.

"That I can agree with," I said as Faulkner wheeled me inside a building.

After a very long and intensive set of almost every medical test imaginable, I learned several things. First off, I had grown from a respectable 5'9 to a gargantuan 6'6. Second off, that growth spurt hadn't only been limited to my height, almost everything about me had gotten bigger, so that would not only mean new pants, but new shirts, shoes, socks, and about every other article of clothing imaginable. Third, I was going to need to start taking supplements for about every single vitamin, mineral, and element that the human body required. It seems my growth spurt had mostly fed on my reserves of those item, and now the stockpiles of them were dangerously low in my body. Finally, I was going to have to start working out. My muscle mass hadn't grown in proportion with the rest of my body and now I was weak in several areas. Overall, this whole growth spurt was turning into a major pain in the ass. On the positive side, I felt good enough to start walking again, although the doc's demanded I use a cane for at least a week so that my body could adapt to its new size.

Cane in hand, I was able to walk out of the doctors office under my own power. Finding Faulkner, I got him and a couple marines to get in a van and head off to my apartment so I could get my stuff. Fortunately, my apartment wasn't in the city core, so it was easy to get to and it hadn't been damaged during the attack.

I hadn't brought much to Japan, so our packing load was light. The highlights of my items were, a set of skis and boots that were probably too small for me now, a desktop and a laptop, my travel documents and some speakers. With what remained of my old life packed up, we departed. Faulkner assured me he'd take care of all the things that would need to be done for me to be able to change my occupation from student to human embodiment of a fighting ship without getting a bill for tuition or an apartment that I was no longer residing in. It was at this point that my stomach rumbled, alerting me to the fact that I was starving. Faulkner even allowed us to stop by a fast food place for a snack. Maybe, he had orders to allow me to get some luxuries my first day so I wouldn't sour on the idea of becoming a human weapon, that or maybe he also wanted some greasy junk food.

Whatever his motive, I enjoyed the meal all the same, and by meal I mean an artery clogging five double cheeseburgers, matched with a large soda. Faulkner and the marines watched me with amazement and confusion as I inhaled my food at a record breaking pace. They had restricted themselves to a much more modest selection of culinary items. Our snack finished, we returned to the base.

By this time, the sun was almost fully under the horizon. Faulkner and the marines helped move my stuff into the room I had woken up in. After taking the new supplements that had been prescribed to me, I climbed into a sleeping cubby and passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow.


	2. Chapter 2: Dumb and Dangerous

**Chapter 2: Dumb and Dangerous**

Title: Dangerous Amateurs

AN: I have wrote an authors note at the end of the chapter to detail, the long abscess and how I intended for that not to happen again

* * *

 **Mitchell**

It was around midday when I finally woke from my slumber. Crawling out of my sleeping cubby I found my phone resting on the table along with a note on the table.

'Figured you'd sleep late after yesterday, when you wake up, go down the hall to room 203. In there you should find Nagato, she'll help you get settled in. We would like to see you again at 3pm. Nagato will show you where you need to go to find us. Also your phone was found near the crashed bus you detailed in your account of the attack. If I were you I would call your parents, we already let them know you were safe, but I'm sure your mother would like to hear your voice.

Faulkner'

I dialed my moms phone and let it ring. I only got an answering machine. I left a short message, telling her I was safe, my place was safe, and that I'd call her back when the time difference wasn't so bad.

Changing into fresh clothes was a total clusterfuck, my newly lankified and uncoordinated body, turned the everyday ritual into a freakish dance of stumbling and cursing. The cherry on top of this shit sundae was the fact that, I hadn't been given shoes that fit. So I had to wear flip-flops that were now comically small. I ended up looking like tourist going down the California boardwalk. Now driven by my nearly imploded stomach, I hobbled out of my room and found the specified room 203. I knocked.

"Enter please" A female voice commanded. I opened the door and hobbled in. Inside was a woman sitting at a table a book in hand.

"I heard your the person thats gonna keep me from starving," I joked. I was met with an unchanging face of seriousness. I made a note to myself that she was a no fun Franny.

"I am indeed your guide to the base and its facilities. I take it you are hungry?" She asked.

"Yep," This was punctuated by a rumble from my stomach.

"In that case, let me show you an adequate facility," she said placing her book on the table and standing up. "Follow me please, I will also show you the facilities, our base contains."

Over what seemed like an eternity of walking, I was given the entire grand tour of every building, field, and janitor's closet, on this massive base. It was a massive pain in the ass, considering a firm gust of wind could blow me away. We did pass by other shipgirls, some took discrete looks, some not so discreet. If I hadn't been so hungry, I might have made my excuses and tried to find something to eat in the city.

Nagato lead me into a building that looked like all the others on the base. Inside it was like any other restaurant that I had seen in my visit to the country.

"So what's so special about this place that I had to come here first? You showed me some dining halls during the tour." Nagato didn't answer, and for a second I saw what might have been a smile.

"Oh Nagato-chan and you brought him!" A small woman came out from the kitchen. She walked up to me and to my surprise, pulled me into a tight hug for a moment before she let me go and hugged Nagato. My mind ground to a complete and utter halt.

"My how rude of me, I just was overwhelmed at the sight of another one of my children, I'm Houshou and you must be Midway," The small woman said with an energetic and overjoyed voice.

"Houshou?" I stammered. My mind scrambled to pin the name, which felt familiar but I didn't know where from, because I know I didn't know it, but my instincts screamed I did. Eventually, I just blurted out what came to mind.

"First purpose built carrier?" I tentatively guessed.

"Yes darling, how are you? Are you hungry? Do you need anything to drink?" She began to fuss over me. My mind was still reeling as more information, and memories that I logically knew weren't mine, but still felt like mine flooded my mind and began to make it clear who this lady was. Houshou was the first purpose built carrier commissioned and in a sense that made all carriers that came after her in some sense her progeny in some form.

"I guess some coffee would be nice," I managed stammer out.

"I'll have a fresh pot brewing right away. Now please sit where ever you like and relax," Houshou said with a motherly smile and she disappeared behind the counter.

Nagato and I took a seat in a booth near the kitchen.

"Did she put you up to that?" I asked jokingly.

"No, she mentioned how she'd hope to eventually see you. I decided it would a good first place to visit," Nagato said, a lot of the seriousness and coldness leaving her voice.

"Besides, all those very important empty grass fields that we spent 30 minutes walking around to?" She didn't seem to care about my jab in the lightest. "So does she really consider all carriers her kids?" I changed topic.

"She is the mother of all carriers, and I would bet she considers you like family," Nagato responded.

"Sure I get that bit, but it still doesn't change the fact that I've never met her. I'm Mitchell, I just have the powers of Midway, I'm not literal embodiment of Midway."

"Then what are you?"

This question floored me. Obviously, I was human there was no and if or buts about it. I was human I had lived a human life, and had just been given a very powerful tool to use. They came into world as ships and only having ever lived as ships. This was an open and shut case of me being human.

So when I found myself stumbling over my words I was perplexed. The logic in my mind made sense, but my body felt wrong saying those words.

"Fuck if I know," I managed to say.

Nagato looked at me with a strange expression, her eyes seemed to probe deep into me, trying to find something. She finally spoke.

"Wainwright-san do you have a problem with being not human?" She asked.

"You goddamn right I have problem with not being human. How would you like it a very of idea of your existence was stripped away?"

"I didn't like it very much, turned from a warship into a test victim. Now I've been given a second chance and have lived it as I wanted to, so I'm still a warship" She responded, all pretense of stoic seriousness gone.

"Yeah, but that's because a warship is defined by its purpose, you kick the shit out of the other ships. If that the case then you could call a goddamn toaster human because both are able to toast some bread. But we don't call toasters human, so obviously there's more to being human than just performing one action," I snapped.

"Do you think I'm human?"

"I don't know and that's my point! If you don't know then how are you supposed to differentiate yourself from an unthinking missile?" I asked.

"But missiles aren't alive or thinking," She shot back.

"That doesn't matter, bacteria are alive and sense their environment, which is basically thinking, yet we are only able to see bacteria as things defined by their abilities and actions. Bio-weapons are living things, yet we don't see them as living. Which cuts back to the problem, that if I don't know that I'm human, then I'm defined by what I can do and have been doing, which is acting like a living weapon. I don't want to be a living weapon to just be used," I said.

"Hmm, I see" Nagato responded. Soon after Houshou came out from her kitchen and set a cup of coffee in front of me and another cup of some other beverage presumably tea in front of Nagato. I took a sip of my drink and shuddered, it was divine.

"How'd the hell you manage to make something this good so quickly?" I asked.

"A good mother knows these things," Houshou said with a smile. It was heart melting sight, and for half a second I felt an unexpected part of me flutter. The thought was gone soon after as a beeping noise pulled me out of my strange thoughts. It was an electronic sound that had pierced the quiet of the restaurant.

"Oh sorry, my new electronic computer is acting up again," she apologized as she moved over to the source of the beeping and began to fiddle with it while mumbling. From what I could make out it was clear she didn't know how to work the device.

"Let me help you with that," I said standing up.

"Oh don't worry yourself about this dear," she dismissed. I pressed on.

"It's honestly no problem, this is what I was studying in university," I said as I navigated myself over to the troublesome machine.

"Well, okay, but don't let it trouble you too much," she relented. I found my way around the bar and next to Houshou who was still fiddling with her computer.

Getting to work I immediately began to diagnose the issue. It quickly became clear what was causing the issue, the computer couldn't update either itself or the restaurant management system. This wouldn't cause too much a problem if it wasn't for the restaurant management system being configured to start up after login automatically, which would cause it to ask to be updated, but the software management system required to access the internet for the update, the only problem being that the OS software hadn't been updated in a while and now didn't support the software channel that the old restaurant management system needed to access, but it did have a workaround that was patched in the newest OS update.

The only problem being that the newest OS couldn't update while a program was running, and because the restaurant management system had been idiot proofed, it was impossible to quit out of by normal means. So the restaurant software couldn't access the internet to update, because the OS didn't have the tools to let it, but the OS couldn't update to get those tools because the restaurant management system couldn't be quit out of and was waiting to be updated. The fix was easy though, just using the command line to force quit out of the restaurant software, this gave the OS the chance to update, thus letting the restaurant software update, solving the Gordian knot.

Coming out of my tunnel vision I found both Houshou and Nagato watching over my shoulder, I must have not noticed them as I worked.

"It should be good to go," I said as I broke away from the item of my focus. Houshou looked absolutely pleased with my quick work, because she made me sit down again, refilled my coffee cup and promise a big meal for all my work. I heard her say to Nagato how proud she was to have a son who was well versed in all sorts of technical matters.

One thing I noticed was that it seemed the restaurant had a couple of speakers set up around, when I asked Houshou about this she said that it had been installed by the construction crew that had built the place, but she didn't have the foggiest of how the run the system. I offered to help get it running and she agreed to let me try my best to get it working, all the while she continued to prepare our meals. I quickly was able to locate the control board, and luckily it was a more modern version that was both able to run off of a streaming service or a traditional aux cable. Pulling out my phone I plugged it in, turned it on and picked a song to test the speakers.I made my way back to my seat and slide into my seat.

"What song is this?" Nagato asked.

"A goddamn classic is what it is." I said taking a sip of my drink. A curious thought came to the forefront of my mind, but I couldn't figure out why it was strange.

"Would you have ever wanted to be a museum ship?" I asked.

"No, I was made to fight," She said firmly.

"Really? Seems like a pretty good gig to me, do your part and then go home. It's probably better than being scrapped, having pieces of yourself torn out by vultures. I'd think any other fate would be preferable to that, a life of relaxation compared to becoming a fiery casket on the bottom of the ocean, or torn apart as your own nation recycles you to be turned into coffee machines. I'd say museum ship is a perfect end for our kind," I rambled.

"Who are you?" She asked her eyes suspicious. I looked at her, hadn't I already told her this?

"I'm Midway, who else would I be?" I said, wondering if I had misspoken. Curiously, her brow furrowed for a moment before a recognition flashed across her eyes.

"Do you know a person called Mitchell Wainwright?" She asked staring at me.

"How am I supposed to know who that is-" I began to say before a lull in the music occurred and in a moment it was like being a mental car crash. I was back, me Mitchell Wainwright, not Midway, or at least not all Midway. It was hard to tell which memories thoughts and feelings were Mitchell's versus who were Midway. My breathing began to speed up as a panic began to take a hold of my mind. I started to try and self diagnose what happened.

The obvious thing that happened was that I had suddenly been talking from a position where my memories, feelings, and in general personality was not that of Mitchell, but was Midway. That left many possibilities, the two most likely being that either Midway took over full control of my body and began to speak from experience, or that the memories, feelings, and personality of Midway overtook mine in priority.

For one thing it didn't feel as if my conscious had been submerged or supplanted, which albeit I had never experienced, I did figure it would have some feeling of that nature. That left the other possibility that Midway had suddenly taken priority over my own memories, and feelings. That left the question of what caused this to happen?

"Wainwright-san?" I snapped out of my rapid thinking and swung my head to face Nagato.

"Yeah, I'm back now" I said. Her tense expression didn't change.

"We must go and immediately report this to higher command authority" She said her voice iron firm.

"Yeah sure, just let me think for a moment" I brushed off.

My mind returned back to solving the problem of what caused it. It could be random or environmental. If it was random then only time would tell, if the event repeated itself. If it was environmental, then there would have to be some environmental trigger. Nothing in my immediate environment seemed out of order. So I started to replay events in my head.

"The music." I said with conviction.

"Music?" She asked.

"The music must have suppressed my human personality, or maybe they simply made it easier for my Midway side to manifest in full. Or something like that, in the end it doesn't matter cause hot damn this is the best cup of coffee ever," I said taking a sip of the heavenly beverage.

"This is serious matter, we must go to the admiral immediately to report this incident"

"I have a better idea. Lets not do that, I'll keep drinking my coffee and have a nice big lunch, and then after that maybe I'll consider going to the admiral." I said taking a sip from my coffee. Usually, I would have agreed with her assessment, but I had an appetite as deep as the Marianas Trench that had to be filled.

Nagato looked like she wanted to protest but at this point Houshou brought out two plates of curry and all conversation on the topic died. For my part in the matter, I made sure to unplug my phone from her sound system after declaring it to be in working order and that I could come by later to help her pick songs and set up a way for her to set songs to play in her cafe. I got my phone and together we left the restaurant.

"So now, let's go see our fearless leaders." I said more flippancy than I had intended. Nagato didn't even respond. In the reception office, I decided that if I was gonna act like a jackass I might as well go full force. I spotted a fruit basket and an epiphany came to me that put a wicked grin on my face. When we were told to enter, I picked up an apple.

We entered the office. Goto, Blackshear, and Faulkner were all seated staring at me. Nagato opened her mouth to speak, but I managed to beat her to the punch.

"Sooo," I dragged out the word before letting it hang as I took a big bite of my apple and chewed for a second, "What's up doc" I said in my best Brooklyn accent. If looks could kill then Captain Faulkner's look would have vaporized me. Goto looked mildly confused, and to my surprise Admiral Blackshear looked as if he was trying to hide a laugh.

"Good to see you are as energetic as ever Mr. Wainwright." Admiral Blackshear said with a smile.

"So what's on the agenda today, besides the fact that I seemed to have discovered something interesting," I said with my normal voice, my desire for mischief somewhat sated. This hint at interesting information drew them like moths to a flame.

"Interesting?" Goto asked.

"Well more of a curiosity, but it has implications assuming there are more kanmasu who are summoned through humans. Actually note this, we need to come up with a term for cases like my own if we do start seeing a lot more. So any of you familiar with Music Therapy?" I asked. Only blanks looks stared back at me.

"Well, the short of it is that music can be used to treat people who suffer from Alzheimer's or Dementia. This probably works because music is interpreted in many different ways, some being language based for lyrics, some being emotional for what that music makes you feel, and probably some episodic memories for times you remember hearing that music. This means that music is able to really pull at many different areas of the memory, and pull out a lot more than just what normal memory cues. This thus also the therapy to try and sometimes drag out old memories that are obscured by conditions such as disease. Now with this context out of the way, I can explain what happened" I explained what had occurred at Houshou's restaurant.

Nagato also related some of her own observations of my seeming transformation to full Midway.

"Sorry, I get how these two things relate, but I can't see the significance." Goto asked.

"Well, it's still complete conjecture, but I bet that if we somehow are able to use music to reliably bring the ship portion of the ship bound humans to the forefront of the mind, then we could maybe make use of those memories as a way to impart skills to the mostly human surface personality. Basically, I think that we can use old memories as a way to make it easier to train and become skilled in combat. Because right now, I have no fucking idea how to properly fight as a ship person, and I guess that trying to train me up to a level of real competency would be a massive drain of time and resources." I explained.

"That would be beneficial. One of the bottlenecks we have run into in trying to combat the Abyssals is the resource consumption of our ships, as much as I hate to say we don't have the resources to truly use our strongest pieces in any consistent manner. So if we do have more human bound kanmusu, then anyway to reduce the amount of resources we consume would go a long way to helping the war effort." Admiral Goto elaborated.

"However, until we have time to really experiment along with many more human bound kanmusu, then this all just academic in nature," I cut in.

"Good point Mr. Wainwright, it is convenient that you would mention training. It is our desire to see that you become well trained and be able to execute your duties in the line of battle correctly and efficiently." Admiral Blackshear said.

"Meaning?" I prompted.

"You will be taking intensive lessons in carrier operations, fleet actions, and naval strategy from now until your skills are satisfactory. Usually, kanmusu have some innate understanding of these things, but since you represent something completely new we plan to put you through your paces. Plus, you're a unique asset so we can't afford to lose you," Admiral Goto elaborated.

"How intensive? " I asked.

"Lets just say you won't be getting a full night's sleep for a long time" Admiral Blackshear said with a grin.

"You say that like I got any sleep beforehand," I said with a chuckle.

"You laugh now, but you won't be having any chances for any crazy heroics for good long time." Admiral Goto declared with a sense of finality. Unfortunately for him, the universe had a very good sense humor.

Two knocks on the door rang out, and I just knew that Murphy's Law had struck in all its glory. A woman with black hair and glasses and stepped into the room carrying a piece of paper.

"Sorry to interrupt Admiral, but this was just received ten minutes ago. She strode with purpose and delivered it to Admiral Goto. He took the piece of paper, his face wrinkling in frustration. I could see the gears in his head turning as he showed the telegram which was then given to Admiral Blackshear and then to Captain Faulkner all of them having similar reactions to the telegram.

"What is it?" I asked, my curiosity burning to know what was happening.

"Murphy's law striking again," Blackshear said with a resigned smile.

The embodiment of Murphy's law this time was a large abyssal taskforce of at least four carriers that was on a direct path to strike Okinawa, that was a problem. The funny thing was that Okinawa had just received a massive shipment of supplies, weapons, and resources that were needed to keep the Japanese kanmasu fleet in the fight, all these supplies sitting in nice unprotected container ships just waiting to be destroyed, that was the big problem. It was such a big problem that Goto and Blackshear both agreed that it was worth the risk of sending me along with the force to intercept and destroy the Abyssals. The reason I was being sent and not all the other veteran carriers, was that during the Battle of Tokyo Bay, almost every single carrier had been damaged, the only exceptions being Taihou, Zuikaku, Akagi, and myself. So we were thrown out to go stop this force.

Admiral Blackshear had been adamant that I shouldn't be let to go out no matter the risk because if I sunk then humanities trump card goes down with me, Goto countered by saying that if these supplies went down, the whole Japanese kanmasu program was shut down for at least a month maybe more and by the time new supplies could be acquired japan could be leveled several times over. The only concession that Blackshear was able to extract from Goto was he was able to get twice the regular escort for me. So instead of one babysitter, I had two escorts who were given the strictest orders to keep my dumbass out of trouble. Their names were Teruzuki and Shiratsuyu. They seemed nice enough.

We raced southward as top speed. Since I was still a rookie, Akagi and Zuikaku spent their time basically giving me a crash course on carrier operations. I had known it wasn't as simple as just firing off my full load of fighters or bombers at first notice, but what I hadn't known was the depth of complexity in all carrier operations. Truth be told most of what they told me went in one ear and out the other, but it sounded complex enough to require a ton of theoretical reading to get a good practical understanding.

An hour into our sprint southward, we were given an update. A cargo vessel carrying more supplies was racing towards the harbour and we were if circumstance allowed, to escort it to safety. Between that and stopping an abyssal push to pulverize Okinawa, we had a lot on our plate.

"Carriers Launch Scout Aircraft" Commanded Akagi. She being the most experience made her the de facto leader of the air wing. We did as told, for my part I launched five of what I had learned were F4F Wildcats as a orbiting patrol force and then launched 10 SBD Dauntless dive bombers as my scouting cohort.

From what I had gleaned from the small amount of information they had been able to cram into my skull was that scouting was done on a quadrant basis in that each search group would be assigned a quadrant and search the whole quadrant. I did not have the control to do that. So instead I was told to launch my planes, form them into a wedge and just check a bearing degree before flying back.

Controlling planes was difficult, seemingly a lot more difficult then what it had been in my first fight. Each plane required detailed mental instructions of what they were supposed to, where to turn, what formation to fly in, what the rules of engagement were, and a bunch of other parameters that I figured were important for various different contexts and missions. I unfortunately had no goddamned idea so I just communicated what I thought were averageish parameters and shot them off.

It was an odd thing to be able to mentally communicate a bunch of information into another entity that's supposedly yourself. It was like think talking to another part of your head that can answer, but that's clearly not a part of you. I would have to do more investigation into this phenomena, but for now all I had in my mind was managing the near constant stream of new voices and information being pumped into my brain.

For not only did you have a mental link per say when your preparing to launch aircraft, but also in the air that link persisted at a much lower bandwidth, but with all my aircraft groups sending back loads of status reports and other information like fuel levels. It made my head throb trying to stay on top of all the unique pieces of information, several times I almost ran into the ship ahead of me because I was zoning out trying to mentally juggle all the task I had. The intense mental effort requirement of this second outing was in stark contrast to the almost instinctual experience that was my previous experience.

My scouts didn't find anything on their patrol and began to return back to me, while I updated them with my coordinates. I was snapped out of my trance by a shouted voice.

"I've spotted the cargo vessel, we were informed about!" Shouted Zuikaku.

"What bearing is it on?" Akagi asked.

"20 degrees relative to me," Zuikaku replied. Akagi only seemed to think for a moment before she seemed to have a plan fully formed.

"Okay, let's close to the freighter and escort it until we spot the enemy task force, them we will have to disengage and go eliminate them." She said as the formation turned to follow the new course. My scouts eventually returned and I was told to launch another group at a different bearing while still continually refreshing my patrolling Wildcats. We quickly came up to the cargo ship.

It was a big ugly thing with "Orange Express" painted on its side. Our force fell into formation on its port as it steamed away from the open ocean and near certain destruction. It seemed like an eternity passed before finally Taihou shouted that she had found the enemy force. They were on our 4 O'clock. It seemed we were facing 2 enemy carriers, 2 battleships, 1 heavy cruiser, 2 light cruisers, and 6 destroyers. They were close in range.

"Turn towards enemy force! Launch a full strike, focus on the enemy carriers and battleships. All non-escorts take the front of the formation," Akagi commanded.

"So you should launch one half of your remaining fighters to act as escorts for your attack strike" Zuikaku advised me. She was next to me in the formation.

"How many of my strike aircraft should I use and how should I group them up?" I asked.

"Ehh for you just use all of them, since your skill at grouping doesn't seem to be that good," She mused.

"What about my remaining Wildcats?"

"If a strike is inbound we will need them to help defend ourselves."

"Okay one last question, my scouting force isn't back yet, so what should I do?"

"Ehh, they get back when they get back just focus on your current strike," She advised.

I felt the pace of my heart pickup as I launched first 13 of my remaining 26 Wildcats, then all 26 remaining SBD's and finally a massive way of 36 TBM Avenger torpedo bombers. My head was chaos, I had given them rather simple instructions to go in a general direction and follow the general mass of other aircraft. On attack commands I had to be rather simple about it because I frankly had no idea what differentiate abyssal ships besides size, so I told them to hit the bigger stuff first. I had gotten a good motion for launching large groups of aircraft, but I assumed it was probably suboptimal since my aircraft came out either too low or too slow and had to waste time getting into proper position. But once my massive formation got into position behind the main strike force I felt the mental strain of trying to organize things fall off as it was just a waiting game.

The sight of so many aircraft in the skies took my breath away. The sky seemed to be full of glinting metal, all flowing in an irresistible tide towards where I knew the enemy lay. My aircraft were much less graceful and organized than my new allies well forged aerial spear points, mine's formation was more intuned of a heavy rock that lacked the grace and finesse of a more handcraft attack pattern, but I hope it was good enough.

I was quite shocked that the mental strain of launching and controlling such a large amount of aircraft was not the linear increase in difficulty I had expected, but rather it seemed to be more of a logarithmic increase, which was curious and would require more investigation. As our force continue to put distance between us and Orange Express, something began to nag the back of my mind.

"The enemy force has moved closer and should be in visual range soon, all carriers have your strike groups adjust!" Akagi shouted out. I focused on my strike group, trying to communicate the change in target location. It was impossible so I settled on having my already slow force just keep following behind the main group. Soon my head exploded with images of the enemy taskforce. At first all I could see were black dots on the horizon, but soon the dots soon grew into a troupe of black figures.

Black dots shot out from the enemy force, and quickly closed the distance. Interceptors! They cut into our airgroup formations. It seemed that the tight formations better resisted the quick passing attacks, as I lost a fair larger amount of planes than anyone else. Though, my high altitude escorting Wildcats did pounce on the enemy fighters as they turned back to re engage the rear of the formation. A good 20% of the enemy fighters were sent burning into the sea, while the remainder had to break off their attack, my Wildcats pursued them.

I watched in amazement as the other strike groups broke into small little parcels, expertly breaking into their attack runs while also maximizing the spread out firepower of the force. It was a thing of beauty watching them all initiate their attack runs. The timing was excellent, the tactics were brilliant, and the finesse was expert. From what I saw, 1 carrier and 1 battleship had both been nearly destroyed in the attack, the other carrier was limping from a bomb hit, the destroyers and cruisers were untouched.

My group now came upon them, the enemy flak was deadly splashing at least 10% of my force outright, the rest began to scatter. I watched in dismay as my rock of a formation broke apart into shards as each plane maneuvered wildly to avoid the flak. It looked like a swarm of drunken pigeons trying to avoid a jet engine. It almost seemed like they forgot that they were supposed to be attacking them.

'ATTACK!' I howled in my mind to them.

They did attack. It just wasn't what I had been imagining they'd do. Groups of one and twos split off and made sloppy attack runs on whatever enemy was closest to them. The dauntlesses dove in shallow angles either overshooting completely, or just missing their bomb attacks. The avengers were even worse, they attacked in ones and twos, angling completely wrong, releasing too early, or just missing with their torpedos. This was only made worse, by the fact that my attack command had seemingly overrode my previous instructions to hit the big guys first, instead they targeted everything equally.

My dauntlesses landed five bomb hits. One on the already dead carrier, two on the unscratched battleship, and the last three were all on separate destroyers. The bombing results were bad, Luckily the avengers had a better day. Probably out of sheer luck they had landed six torpedos. Two on the fresh battleship, two into a pair of destroyers, and the last two had ravaged a light cruiser.

"Jeez, I didn't know he was that inexperienced" I heard Zuikaku mutter. I wanted to be offended, but even in my own eyes it was a pretty sorry performance. At best I had taken out three destroyers, a light cruiser, and maybe a battleship. On the surface that wasn't bad except for the fact that my plane to hit ratio was in the range of 30% compared to 80% for everyone else, and that the enemy still had a functioning carrier that could launch a counter strike against us.

My aircraft streamed back towards us, I estimated it would take them ten minutes to return and refit. My sorry strike results aside, we had smashed them and with one or two more strikes we should be easily able to wipe out the enemy force. Nice and simple.

That was when an image flashed into my mind, it was of four abyssal destroyers steaming perpendicular to the apparent flight path of the image. I was confused initially, since my strike group had just left the enemy force behind. I felt a bit nauseous when I realized those were from my scouts, my scouts were still out! I looked out to where my scouts should be and felt a tingle of fear run down my neck. If my scouts were there, and then the Abyssals were going on an oriented perpendicular to my scouts path home. I pointed a finger to where my scouts were and looked across my finger in the same orientation as I saw the destroyers traveling. Directly ahead was open ocean, but off angle just a bit I saw the top of the Orange Expresses smoke cloud.

"SHIT!" I howled, drawing surprised looks from the rest of the fleet.

"We need to go back! Right now! I saw four abyssal destroyers heading for that freighter!" I explained panic rising in my head.

"We can't," Akagi stated firmly.

"Why not!?" I was dumbfounded.

"The enemy force is still at a strength where if we split our force up, we risk damage." She explained calmly.

"What about my two escort destroyers? Shiratsuyu and Teruzuki? I'll just hang back and keep out of danger" I asked.

"They have to stay near you at all times. The admiral was clear about this, and I will follow his orders. We stick to the mission parameters. Your escorts stay with you," She was a wall of finality, but the last thing she said gave me an idea, a very dumb idea. I nodded in apparent understanding.

Then I sneaked a look into my nuclear rounds pouch, I had first time I hadn't checked to see how many I had so I had no idea if I had started with six or if the fifth one had just regenerated after being used. In the end it didn't matter that much anyway. I next check to see the position of the strike group escort wildcats. They were only a third of the way back, which was a perfect place for my plan. I started to mentally relay commands to my orbiting patrol fighters telling them to stay with the fleet and guard our carriers. Looking to my left and right, I saw my hapless escorts weren't paying attention to me.

I started to slow down, letting them overtake me and speed ahead. I loaded my nuclear grenade into the under barrel grenade launcher. It was now or never, my lack of skill might have gotten that crew on the Orange Express killed and now it was my responsibility to save them. The grenade launcher burped and the nuclear bomber which I now knew was called an AJ Savage soared into the sky on a mission of destruction.

I turned and bolted towards the freighter. I'm sure I heard some shouts, but in that moment all my focuses was placed into covering as much distance as possible. It was an amount of effort I had never before exerted in my life. My lazy body protested vigorously at this abuse, my legs burned and my chest ached. Still for what felt like the first time in my life, I kept at it. My mind was kept occupied by the constant imagery updates of my savage closing the distance with the abyssal fleet, it had already overtaken the returning strike group. I tracked its progress as it closed with the Wildcats I had left halfway to escort it to the abyssal fleet.

A new image of higher importance flashed in my mind, one of my returning avengers had spotted a mass of black dots skimming the sea towards our fleet shrouded in what seemed like fog. My mind ached trying to spatially lay out the situation, but I got a good enough approximation. Switching focus to my wildcats orbiting the fleet, it very quickly became apparent that the other defending fighters were unaware of the threat. It was actually a rain squall that was shielding the abyssal attack from line of sight. I went for my radio to tell the fleet about the incoming attack, and then I realized I didn't have a radio, I had no way to directly communicate with them at all. I looked behind me, the only thing I could make out was that my two destroyer escorts were in hot pursuit of me, the rest of the fleet was too far to see. For a second I considered slowing down to try and use them to warn the fleet, but based on the fact that I hadn't seen any of them exhibit long range communication, and the very little time the Orange Express probably had I disregarded it.

A new solution popped into my head, but it was probably a long shot at best. The first thing I did was vector all, but one of my wildcats towards the incoming strike. The remaining Wildcat I directed to try and almost ram one of the other orbiting defense fighters, the fighter predictably dodged, but I hoped I had its attention. My Wildcat now in front of it waggled its wings a fair amount and turned towards the rain squall and incoming Abyssal strike. It was the most I could hope to do.

My focus returned to my own body, I noticed three things, my legs fucking hurt, my chest fucking hurt, and the Orange Express and Abyssal destroyers were both in front of me. The destroyers were coming at the Orange Express from its right side, and were very quickly closing in. The good thing was that they were closing at a snail's pace compared to my all out sprint. It seemed like they hadn't noticed me.

The only problem now was that I was completely out of aircraft and had only my anti aircraft guns to defend me, which I figured wasn't going to cut it. However, as is always taught in childhood, a stick swung hard enough can do plenty of damage on its own. I grabbed the barrel of my M16 carrier deck thingy in both hands, wielding it like a baseball bat.

I noticed a small open window between the 3rd and 4th destroyer in line, I guesstimated where they would be in the six seconds left before I closed the distance. They were angled away from me.

"HEY ASSHOLES, PICK ON SOMEONE YOUR OWN SIZE!" I yelled.

The beady eyes in the destroyers all snapped on me, they turned into me presenting a massive broadside, probably to try and get off a shot. They were just too slow. I swung my makeshift bat with all my might as I zoomed past them, adding my strength to my already massive momentum.

My arms shook with the impact, but I was able to follow through with my swing. This blow took a massive chunk out of the destroyers head, killing it instantly. I didn't gawk at the damage, but instead turned hard right swinging myself out and away from the destroyers. My large 5 inch AA guns began to open up on the Abyssals. I did see small bits and pieces get blown away when I hit, but hits were rare. The Abyssals finished their turn towards me and opened up with their main weapons.

I felt an object whizz past my head and a plume of water explode in front me. The next second though I got walloped right in the stomach, by what felt like a bowling ball going 100 miles an hour. My vision blurred and I choked out a groan. It really fucking hurt.

Three pillars of water exploded in front of me drenching me in cold seawater, snapping me out of the hazy pain coma I had been failing into. I focused all my AA guns on the closest destroyer, and shot off a massive salvo.

It exploded into a plume of small bits and black fluid. I fist pumped mentally, and then regretted it. I saw black cylinders shoot out of the mouths of the two remaining destroyers. Torpedos! I had to dodge! The Abyssals fired again.

My forehead exploded into pain, jerking my head back and sending me mentally swimming. I stumbled, my temples were pounding in the worst headache ever. For a moment I wondered what the I was doing. A dulled force nearly sent me spinning, and an aching sensation in my right leg started to pound. I tried to focus, but my head was groggy and every movement made me want to vomit. I was drenched in water, the cold biting into my spine and bringing me back to the waking world.

I realized I was fucking dead, those torpedos should have been here by now and I should be dead any second. A tiny voice in my head told me to turn towards the Abyssals, and my dazed head simply followed the command. I turned to face my enemy and began to charge them down.

My 5 inchers began to open up again on the closest abyssal. I saw hits take bits out of him, but it seemed like my shells were missing a lot more. The pair fired again, no pain followed so I figured they missed. If my estimate was correct though they'd get one last shot at me at near point black range.

I had to go faster, I needed more speed! My legs refused to comply, this was as damn fast as they were willing to go and I could go die if I tried to make them go faster. Problem was that I was probably going to fulfil that prediction very soon. My internal clock ticked down to when they would fire again.

5 seconds.

4 seconds.

3 seconds.

2 seconds.

1 second.

A flash of light filled my vision. It distracted me for a second. It distracted them for two seconds. I swung my makeshift club again. I aimed for a chipped away part of its massive head, swinging downwards like an axe. I hit home caving in its head and submerging it underwater as black gore covered me.

The last destroyer had been ready though and fired a perfectly aimed shot, its slammed into my left kneecap. My knee gave way and I collapsed into the sea, only my right leg keeping me afloat.

I tried to move, but I couldn't. My body straight up refused to move. Now I was fucked.

At point blank range that destroyer could dome me and that would be the end of Mitchell Wainwright. Game over.

The internal clock in my head ticked down. Time seemed to slow, I noticed that the railing of the Orange Express was lined with people. All watching as my dumb life expired and soon to be theirs. Oh well I had tried hadn't I? The road to hell was paved with good intentions.

The abyssal destroyer in front of me exploded. A plume of water shot into the sky then fell to earth covering me in water and more of that black gore. I turned my head.

Teruzuki and Shiratsuyu both stood off a distance panting. They had saved me. All I could do was watch and suck in air, as my angry body quit. They came up to me.

"Did we win?" I croaked.

They looked at each other and shrugged.

"Probably, no thanks to you," Shiratsuyu said matter of factly. It stung, but it was probably true. I shrugged in half agreement.

"Are you injured?" Teruzuki asked coming down to examine me.

"Not to bad, just got my bell rung. Gimme a minute to catch my breath" I wheeze.

"I can't see any blood on you, so that's good I think" Teruzuki said as she looked over me.

"Really? I got smacked by like 4 shells?" Their looks sharpened and they took a closer look at me, obviously more worried.

"Are you sure? I can't see any damage." Teruzuki said.

"Yeah, they got me right in the knee right before you guys saved my ass, right here," I managed to pull up my knee and point to where I felt the blast. Nothing was there except for a large angry welt and a larger splotch of bruised skin around the welt.

"Huh" was all that I could utter. A loud horn interrupted whatever the pair was gonna say next. I looked up and saw the Orange Express slowly retreating into the distance, and I also saw the crew onboard waving. I gave a wave back, the crew seemed to like this and tooted their horn 3 more times before they were out of sight. I kept waving the whole time. I even think the girls waved too.

It was another minute before my heart and body had cooled off to the point where I think I was good to go. I did dunk my sweaty head into the sea, that cold bath blew away whatever remaining cobwebs were inhabiting my brain. My brain flooded with images.

I snapped my head out of the water clutching it with my hands, as my already tired mind pieced together what had happened during my little tussle.

It seems the abyssal fleet had clumped up around their last carrier, probably to provide better protection against aircraft. Unfortunately for them, that had also put all of them in the blast zone for my atomic attack. Only one destroyer was left afloat to go return from when it had came.

On the defense of our carriers, only one of the groups of fighters had followed mine to intercept the abyssal strike force, it had been enough to seriously blunt the strike force. Some did get through our screen, but were pounced upon by the remaining defending fighters. However, two bombers had gotten their payloads off. One hit Zuikaku, and the other Akagi. I didn't have any information on how bad the damage was.

The rest of my aircraft were all on their way back to me now, and I would have to land them all in a short space of time. Compared to what I had just dealt with, that seemed like a simple task.

I managed to force myself to stand. The two girls looked at me expectantly.

"We definitely won, Zuikaku and Akagi both got hit by single bombs. I don't know much more than that," I stated.

"Are they okay?" Teruzuki fretted.

"Like I said, I don't know much. But from what my guys saw, they're fine." I reassured.

"Are ya ready to get going? We need to meet up with the fleet now" Shiratsuyu needled.

"Ya lets get out of here" I nodded. I stumbled a bit trying to get moving. I held out my hand as Teruzuki tried to help me stand up.

"I'm fine, just a bit tired. Lets go" I reassured. My next stride was controlled and confident, and I soon got back into a rhythm that allowed me to keep up with my two escorts.

I wondered if everyday was going to be like this, because if it was I'd die in my 20's from stress. But, now it was time to go home, rest, relax, and crack open a beer. How much more could go wrong in a single day?

* * *

AN: I would like to apologize for the extreme and frankly unacceptable delay I had in getting this chapter up. I have tried to remedy this, by having a nice large buffer of 3 draft chapters done before I uploaded this one. So if all things hold, I may be able to get on a schedule of once every two weeks.

We have one more chapter in this initial arc, before we start meeting some more human bound kanmasu and begin to get into a stride and tone that will be constant through the story.

Feedback is always extremely appreciated.

Thank you for taking time to read my story.


	3. Chapter 3:Liars, Damn Liars, & Reporters

**Chapter 3: Liars, Damn Liars, and Reporters**

Title: Dangerous Amateurs

AN: Heres a shorter update to keep up the pace. I have written more below.

* * *

 **Mitchell**

It was a quiet trip home. After, recovering my aircraft me and my escorts returned back to the main force. As I had seen, both Akagi and Zuikaku had been hit by bombs. Bombs which had managed to hit them in their weakest areas and incapacitate the both of them. They were severely hurt, which is why it fell to me and Taihou to carry them back to base.

Surprisingly, no one had confronted me about my little escapade. Shiratsuyu reported what happened, and Nagato now the apparent person in command took it in stride and said nothing on the matter to besides just telling me to carry Akagi back home.

My body was less than receptive to this next task, but I grit my teeth, hefted Akagi, and followed the fleet home. Akagi was probably pissed at me, so I didn't try to make conversation. She was way worse for wear, so she didn't break the silence as I carried her back.

For my own part in the affair, I had gotten the snot beaten out of me by the destroyers, but I filed it under a live and learn experience. Or at least that's how I was rationalizing all the painful welts that dotted my body. It turns out armor doesn't mean hits won't hurt, it means that they won't punch through my skin and scramble my insides. Besides the welts, I was starting to notice that my skin felt rather hot, and I had ignored my parents enough to know what that meant, I was going to have a hell of a sunburn by the time I made it back.

The rest of the ships seemed to be giving me the cold shoulder, even my escorts had cooled off to my plight, probably due to the fact that I had bailed on the formation to go charge a couple destroyers to save a cargo vessel and had allowed the rest of our fleet to get smacked around because I was off playing hero. It was a stupid thing to do and I hated myself for doing it, but it had to be done.

I wasn't going to let a bunch of defenseless people get run down like raccoons on the highway. I was sure I had done the right thing all the things considered, now the hard part was going to be defending myself against all brass wearing Napoleon wannabes at home.

Our party pulled into base just as the sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, I was able to drop Akagi off to some waiting personnel who whisked her off to the medical baths.

I took my sweet time in getting my rigging off, partly due to a sunburn that made it a painful process, and also due to my own reservations about the inevitable tongue lashing I was going to get. Which was why it was a surprise that Captain Faulkner was there waiting for me outside the building.

"Whats up?" I asked in the most relaxed tone I could muster.

"Come with me" He said before turning to walk without even waiting for my answer. I jogged to catch up with him.

"One of the crew on the Orange Express recorded your rescue attempt and put it on the web. We weren't fast enough to take it down, and by now almost half the world knows somethings up and the other half isn't even awake. We were hoping to keep your presence a secret a bit longer so that the narrative could be tailored right, but now we are going full disclosure. News crews from around the world are waiting for a press conference you are going to give in about 10 minutes. It's not ideal, but this is the best we can do in the current situation." Faulkner explained.

There was a lot to take in, but the most important thing was that I was going to be shoved in front of a microphone in five minutes and have the entire world's eyes on me. To some this would be a nightmare, but I had spent years carefully honing my skill of acting like a jackass in front of a crowd to a fine edge.

First impressions are important, so I had to make a very strong one. The words of Midway passed through my head, as long as there was people willing to fight there would be more people getting melded with a ship. So I had to do my best to instill the will to fight in others, and a press conference that would be seen by the whole world seemed like a good first step in that direction. So this would have to go off well or I might screw us farther down the line.

Faulkner lead me to a door. "The press conference room is on the other side. Are you ready?" He asked with some concern evident in his voice. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. My mind went quiet. I opened my eyes, a roguish grin pasting my face.

"Lets rock and roll" I said.

Faulkner opened the door and lead me in. I put a little swagger in my step and I walked into the room. A cacophony of camera shutters drowned out all other noise. A long table with microphones, name plates, and bottled water lay in front of me. There were three chairs the two on the ends of the table were already occupied by Admiral Goto and Admiral Blackshear. The chair in the middle presumably mine was empty. I sat down in my chair and pulled myself into the table.

The room quieted, a tense anticipation taking hold as I got myself settled. I tapped the microphone in front of me to see if it was working, two thumps filled the room. Before any of the generals could speak, I struck first.

"It's a good thing I don't have a dermatologist, otherwise he'd skin me alive faster than a whole Abyssal fleet. Ship spirit imbued human or not, a full day in the sun on water still cooks me like a hotdog," I joked. The tense atmosphere melted away as laughs filled the room. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Blackshear rest his head in his hands. I smiled. The room calmed down, giving Goto the chance to launch into a speech. It was a flat and boring speech done in the very direct, yet vague way that only military folks and politicians could manage. It was just a rehashing of my circumstances of being shipified. It was straight to the facts and rather boring, but it told the story in a nice boring package.

Goto wrapped up his speech and opened the floor to questions. The room exploded as reporters shouted questions while doing their best to be seen and called on. Goto pointed at one reported and the room quieted as he stood up and asked.

"Mr. Wainwright, do you still feel human?" This question stunned the room. All eyes focused on me. I wanted to feel some indignation at the question, but I couldn't find it in me to get worked up.

"Well if your asking right now, I feel more like a burned hot dog than a human" That quip got the crowd laughing. After the laughing calmed down I continued. "To be serious though, I would say that I feel human. I still feel the same, I have my old memories, and I feel all the feelings that I should. I guess if I had to describe it, it's like I have feelings and memories that feel human, but their from being a ship. If that clarifies things" I said. The crowd seemed to accept this with nods. Goto pointed at a different reporter.

"Can you detail some of the physical changes that occurred due to the transformation?"

"Well I've grown out of every piece of clothing I owned, and my sweet darling pair of skis are now way too small for me and I'm sure my bmi has gone from normal to chicken legs skinny. My head now perpetually hurts from all the door frames I smack it into." That line got more laughs as I wore a goofy smile. I played my role of an unconcerned affable guy stuck in strange circumstances well as the night wore on, and I answered every stupid personal question asked of me, from what I was studying to what colors socks I owned. I answered every question with a smile and a joke, not only because it was fun to entertain the crowd, but also because it was playing a key role in normalizing me and future shipified people as average Joes and Janes that aren't a threat to their safety and the wellbeing of society.

"Are there going to be more people who turn into ships like you?" A female reporter asked. This question made me stop for a second. This was a question that if I handled right, could payout huge dividends later on. I had to take this one seriously.

"Yes. If there are more people who are willing to stand up and fight these invaders, then I'm sure that those people will get the opportunity to get the ability to stand up and fight." I answered with a firmness in my voice that even surprised me. I continued.

"This is an option for everyone. We all have the opportunity to stand up and fight. This is no longer a war between our shipgirls and their Abyssals, this is now a war between humanity and Abyssals. We now have the power to fight back. I alone can't win this war, nor can the shipgirls, nor can all the militaries in the world. This is a war of everyone, this is a war for all humanity and by all humanity. So yes there are going to be more people like me, but there are going to many many more that aren't who will still be vital for victory. Humanity can either win together, or we will all lose together, the choice is ours to make." I sat back in my chair, but now not only my face tingle, my entire body seemed to vibrate with an electricity of excitement. The whole room was silent and awash in the same feeling of energy.

This silence was snapped when Goto spoke into his microphone. "That will be all the questions for now."

Normalcy filled the room as whispers and murmurs returned, and the previous atmosphere melted away. Goto and Blackshear both stood prompting me to stand and together with Captain Faulkner we left the room.

"Mr. Wainwright, please follow us to office. We have much to discuss." Faulkner said. My aching body made me want to protest, but my better sense kept my mouth shut. I followed the admirals in silence, until we entered Goto's office. The two admirals sat down in chairs behind the desk, while Faulkner and I stood. Goto seemed to compose his face, and stared me down with a look that sent a shiver down my spine.

"Mr. Wainwright can you please enlighten me on your thought process that lead you to abandon the carrier task force and your escorts to charge four destroyers requiring to be saved by your two escorts. Not only putting yourself in danger, but leading to two carriers of the task force being nearly sunk. So not only did you get your comrades wounded and ensure that only two carriers yourself included remain to defend ourselves, you also got close to throwing away yourself and the only trump card that we have over the Abyssals, and on top of that you managed to blow your secret in less time than it takes to order a pizza and fire off another nuclear device in less time that it takes a fucking plumber to show up and fix my toilet. I can't say if you did anything right. So do enlighten me, I'm very interested in what you have to say." Goto inquired. If I hadn't been so tired, the shiver in my spine would have morphed into a full body tremble. He was pissed. No scratch that he was really fucking pissed. I had to come up with a good answer, besides saying I was saving lives. I had to justify it, otherwise he was gonna shove his foot so far up my ass, I'd be tasting leather for a month.

"I'm waiting Mr. Wainwright" Goto urged. That snapped my head into overdrive, until I had the best answer I could find. I would just have to sell it well.

"I had to save lives, those sailors were guaranteed dead if I hadn't helped. I did do the wrong thing, by rushing in there to help them, but also it was the right thing consequences wise. I didn't get hurt, they didn't die, we didn't lose the battle, none of our own were lost, and protected the ships in harbour. All mission objectives were completed. I-" I explained before Goto interrupted me.

"But you got Zuikaku and Akagi severely wounded! Do you think those planes would have made it through the anti-air screen if you guns were targeting planes instead of ships? There is no way you can convince me that if you had been doing your duty that wouldn't have happened!" Goto was now shouting as the rage began to build in him. Surprisingly, this didn't deter me it only reassured me that I was right.

"I cannot deny that. However, that downside is dwarfed by the upside my actions had. I showed the world that we are fighting to protect them, the world only knows me and by extension people who have been shipified as protectors to the extreme. This trust and good reputation with the world will drive up the rate of people who are willing to fight, and thus possible to become shipified. So this is a long term good, over a short term loss. That is why I did what I did." I answered.

"Bullshit, you didn't think about that at all when you did it. You just rushed in, and now your justifying it after the fact," Goto snapped, his verbal bite lacked the conviction and fury it previously had.

"When I thought of that doesn't matter whether it was 5 seconds ago, or 100 years ago, the reality of the situation is the same. I did make a mistake by rushing in as I do lack experience in military matters, but the results of the situation are the same." I said as I went for the metaphorical throat of his argument. I was shocked when I saw Goto perk up with a smile.

"That's right you are inexperienced in military matters, so I can't hold that against you. However, we cannot afford to have you be so inexperienced and it is my job as one of your commanding officers to aid in your education, so the responsibility for this snafu falls onto me." Goto said with a smile, a smile that worried me. "So now that this has been put behind us I can now aid in your instruction. I'm going to put together a reading list of books on military subjects, and your going to obviously want to read them all so we can make sure something like this doesn't happen again. We also need to get you in fighting shape, I'll let Captain Faulkner see to your physical education. But, we are short on carriers with only you and Taihou in fighting strength, so we might need to call upon you to shore up our defenses until the other carriers are healed. I'm sure you won't mind, since this is a fight for the sake of humanity as you've said" Goto said with a wicked grin. That Goto was a clever bastard and now I was straight fucked.

* * *

Several hours later I found myself in my room with a pile of books on my table, about 10 to be exact. It wasn't the worst outcome that Goto could have slammed me with, but it wasn't good either. I had ten books to read in a week, along with fighting, and gym class from hell. Oh yeah and also pretty much every shipgirl here had a reason to hate my guts. Not the best first day.

I looked at the book on the top of the stack. It was a thick tome on what seemed like the entirety of the Pacific theater of WW2. It was the logical place to start. I checked the clock. It was 10pm.

Sighing, I picked up the book and set it on my table. Cracking it open, my eyes began to scan the lines of text.

I had always been a science kid, so I knew a bit about world war 2, but this book made me realize how little I knew as it laid out a comprehensive narrative from Pearl Habour all throughout the war. It felt odd reading the names of ships I knew such as Akagi in a text that was 3 times as old as me, which highlighted how fucking weird things were this day.

My reading spell was broken at midnight when my phone beeped at me, I dragged my eyes to it only to be greeted with irrelevant sports news. My concentration broken, I set the book down.

My motivation to read had drained away. I needed to do something else, so I cracked open my laptop. I browsed the world news sites and it was the reaction to be expected. Some were all for it, some saw it as jingoist propaganda, some said I was the devil incarnate, and other managed to use as a way to push some dumb agenda. It was to be expected, I was just happy by the small amount of people who genuinely believed in the idea I had tried to broach.

I began to wonder how I would actually begin to improve myself. Last battle had shown I had extreme deficiencies in my skills and knowledge base. It would be a massive list of tasks to complete. I opened a text document on my computer and began to detail the massive list of tasks and goals I had to start putting my mental energies to solving or fixing. In general they boiled down to three central areas, improve my own knowledge of naval combat, explore the implications and memories of Midway, and improve my own skills in naval combat by integrating knowledge from the first two problems.

It was a good start of a document, it would require some cleanup of goals and actionable objectives. But, I had created my roadmap for the next week and now I was going to start pulling myself out of the hole I had started in. I closed my laptop, my work done.

I sat for a while, in a whirlpool of swirling emotions as everything demanded precedence. I needed to be happy, I needed to be sad, I needed to be stressed, I needed to take command, and I needed to be lazy.

It was too much, so instead I felt nothing. Just apathy and exhaustion, those were easy to act on. So I changed into my pajamas, turned off the lights, and slinked into my sleeping cubby. I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

I did not find a quiet solace in my dreams, which was becoming a rather annoying trend.

After the interminable darkness and emptiness that early sleep brings. I came back to awareness in a cockpit. It was what I somehow knew to be the cockpit of a Wildcat. I had no control over my body, but was instead a passenger in an all too real thrill ride. My head darted from side to side scanning the sky before, black glints off to the lower left tickled a part of my brain that I had only recently awoken.

The abyssal aircraft were below and to the left of our formation of Wildcats. I heard a language speak out, it wasn't any language that I knew. It was sing-song melodic tongue, but my brain somehow translated it.

"Bandits, 11 o'clock wave top level. Bank and yank folks! Let's go earn our keep." I heard affirmations come over the radio set, and I now whoever I was pulled the Wildcat into a downward wide spiraling turn, diving towards the abyssal. I saw the rest of the flight follow my aircraft into the maneuver. Our flight dove down onto the abyssal strike force. My point of view body seemed very skilled.

My Wildcat came in behind an abyssal aircraft and fired off a perfectly aimed deflection shot. The abyssal burst into flames and dove into the sea. The enemy formation splintered into many tiny aircraft. My Wildcat reversed its dive turn and snapped into a rightward bank that put into the rear of another abyssal.

The guns belched fire, and that abyssal exploded in midair. My radio crackled to life.

"I have a bandit on my six!" The voice seemed panicked. My head looked to my right and saw what I assumed to be my wingman with an abyssal fighter taking potshots at him.

"Weave! Weave! Weave!" My pilot yelled before taking the plane into an leftward bank. Soon my pilot reverse this into a rightward bank, and I saw my wingman and the abyssal behind him. The abyssal was on his tail, but my wingman had been banking towards me. This gave my pilot an excellent firing angle.

He sent more bullets into the abyssal. He fell away on fire towards the sea. I felt a sense of exuberance at the third victory.

"Look out!" My radio crackled. My head swiveled looking for the threat, but the warning came too late.

Tracers scythed through my wing, and sent me spinning towards earth. The body I was in tried to regain control, but it was for naught. The ocean came up to grasp me in an embrace of death. That was the end of my dream.

* * *

The infernal brightness of the sun woke me up. Again, I disappointed to learn that this was not a dream, but now my new reality. I yawned and stretched, again hitting my head on the top of my sleeping cubby.

"Fuck," I hissed. My head slammed back into my pillow, my eyes shut. My head throbbed before the pain began to dissipate. I was about to get up when I felt my shirt tug. It was followed by what seemed like a high pitched noise. Before I could swing my head around, my shirt tugged again.

" _Hey!"_ A high pitched voice called out to me. Opening my eyes I came to face to face with a small person. It was a tiny person all dressed up in pilot garb. To make sure it wasn't a hallucination, I poked at its cheek with my finger. It was squishy. The mini person tried to slap away my hand.

" _Hey! Stop!"_ It complained, while it still fought with my finger.

" _Why should I?"_ I teased as my finger dueled with the slaps from the mini person. I was shocked, but it seemed I had gotten used to shocking events because I couldn't find it in me to be shocked.

" _I'm hungry!"_ The mini-person said. Truth was I was hungry too, but I had to probe for more information.

"Who are you?" I stopped my fingers assault.

" _I'm a F4F-3!"_ The little figure said with pride. In general stature, the figure was about the size of a can. It was almost cartoonishly proportioned body wise with a big head. It was a little blonde woman who looked like a pilot.

"Huh, really?" I said almost dumbfounded.

" _Yep! Go get some food!"_ I considered this demand, I was hungry. This was going to require more investigation, but for now it would probably be best to go with the flow.

"Why don't you come with me to get some food, I'm also hungry" I said.

" _Good idea!"_ I decided that I didn't care enough to change, so I threw on a sweatshirt and slipped my feet into my pair of flip flops. I held out my hand to the mini person and she jumped on. I tried to offer the kangaroo pocket, but she had none of it. She ended up choosing my left shoulder as a suitable location.

Partner in tow, I left my room and headed for the general cafeteria. The hallways were quiet, and for a moment I reflected that I still had no idea how to live here. My passenger was silent as we navigate the halls of the building. I was coming up to a corner turn, when someone stepped out going the opposite way. We almost collided, but just avoided it.

"Midway-san!" Taihou jumped.

"Whoa sorry! My bad Taihou, I wasn't paying attention," I apologized regaining my bearings.

"It's fine," She answered quietly. I sensed that there was a bit of distance in her words and I honestly couldn't blame her for it considering my previous days actions. One thing did pop into my mind. She had already turned away to keep walking.

"Oh yeah, one thing. Is this normal?" I asked pointing to my passenger. Her eyes focused on the little gal on my shoulder before returning to meet my eyes.

"That's a fairy. It's nothing abnormal, but I've never seen one like that. You should probably see Nagato, she'll know what to do," She said moving to leave.

"I kinda sorta have no idea where she is, could you maybe show me?" I admitted sheepishly. It was true, I had no recollection of where her room was.

"I guess so. Follow me," she replied.

She led me to a room and knocked on the door.

"Nagato-san, its Taihou and Midway-san. Midway-san has a question about a new fairy." A voice from inside responded.

"Enter." We both walked in. Nagato was seated at her table doing some paperwork.

"Hey Nagato, I have a question about this little gal," I said pointing towards the now dubbed fairy on my shoulder. Nagato's eyes darted to my fairy and stayed there for a while before darting back to mine.

"Thats a fairy," she responded.

"Do I have to do anything or take care of it?" I asked.

"No not particularly, they most fend for themselves. They do like to hang around their ship, but they're harmless. Don't worry about them."

"Okay so what are they? Mine introduced herself as a F4F-3 Wildcat. I know that the aircraft that I use. Is there a connection?"

"That's a difficult question to answer, the best answer that I can give is that they represent the experience tied to that piece of equipment personified. And yes there is a connection, fairies exist for equipment you have and use so you will obviously have fairies for your own equipment."

"Okay that makes a bit of sense," I said as all the piece of her explanation fell into place.

"Anyway, it's a good thing both of you came here, because I need to talk to both of you." Nagato said looking at both of us.

"From now on I want both of you to be working together round the clock. Taihou, we need him trained quickly and since your the only operational carrier, you two will have to spend every waking moment for the next week together. We need Mr. Wainwright combat effective, and as the last battle showed, right now he is not. Any questions?" She asked.

"Huh?" Both Taihou and I said at the same time.

* * *

AN: Heres an update thats about half sized of a usual chapter. I decided to cut the initially outlined chapter 3 in half, mostly because I want to keep up the pace of updates. The new chapter 4 should be out in 2 weeks or so. Then we shall get into introducing some more of first wave of other human bound kanmasu.

A reviewer also pointed out that I had totally flubbed the hit ratios in the previous chapter, so I will be going back and bringing that more in line with reality. Feedback on my screw ups is always appreciated, so I can fix it.

As always reviews, follows, favorites and the like is always extremely appreciated.

Thank you for reading and have a wonderful day.


	4. Chapter 4: Mundane Danger

**Chapter 4: Mundane Danger**

Title:Dangerous Amateurs

AN: Another short update my apologies. More below.

* * *

 **Mitchell**

"Sorry can you say that again, I don't think I hear you correctly," I said hoping against hope I had misheard Nagato.

"I want you and Taihou to work together and be together non stop for the next week. We need you to be trained quickly, so near constant exposure to a trained carrier should hammer in correct procedures."

"Okay, so I didn't mishear you," I said. It wasn't like I hated Taihou, it's rather more of a sense that I was persona non grata, and trying to force me into the carrier social circle wouldn't go to well.

"I understand Nagato-san. I'll do my best," Taihou said, while doing a slight bow. It was at this point my fairy had enough of the waiting around and made her displeasure known.

" _Food! Lets get food! I'm hungry!"_ She pouted, slamming her tiny fists into my shoulder. Nagato and Taihou both seemed entertained by her anger.

"I think my little one has had enough," I said with a lopsided grin. Nagato and Taihou both seemed entertained by my fairies temper tantrum.

"If you have no more questions, then your dismissed." Nagato returned to looking at papers of her desk. I got up to leave and escape from the room, I was stopped dead by a vice grip on my shoulder.

"Where do you think your going?" The iron willed voice of Taihou asked. My escape attempt foiled, I had to recover quickly.

"I was just going to grab my laptop, so that when we have breakfast together I can take notes," I lied.

"Oh good, let me come with you. If we are going to be working together, I should know where your room is." She insisted. I wasn't going to be able to wiggle out of this one.

"Great idea," I concurred, as my hopes for escape melted in front of me. We left the room in silence, and we walked to my room in silence.

When we got to my room, I led her in. I packed up my laptop into a backpack, while Taihou looked around at the room. She looked at the massive stack of books I had left on my table, her question evident.

"Goto assigned that wonderful set of reading to me, my sleep schedule be damned," I grumbled.

"I trust that he did it for a good reason. You do admit your inexperienced in the art of battle. Learning about it is the first thing a warrior must do." Taihou mused, looking over the books.

"Killing my sleep schedule seems a bit like an overreaction on his part." I hefted my backpack.

"Let's eat at Houshou place. Her tables are larger." I proposed. Taihou nodded and we departed from my room. We walked in silence. It was awkward to say the least. Everytime I would consider breaking the silence, I changed my mind. It was horribly awkward, but I was still riding the high of my smug press conference performance so I managed to ignore it.

We swung into Houshou's place. There were a few patrons enjoying the food and good atmosphere. Our entrance however did not go unnoticed and I felt almost all the eyes of the place start tracking me. This did put a damper on my smug swashbuckler attitude. Fortunately Houshou in all her glory swatted that down, having just dropped off a tables food came up to us with a big grin.

"Midway-san good to see you!" For a moment I thought about mentioning my real name, but I didn't. That was going to be the natural reaction for most shipgirls I might as well just get used to it rather than fight the tide.

"Good to see you too. Have a table for two?"

"Sure thing sweetie, want anything to start off with?" She inquired, in that sickeningly sweet tone that only mothers and over engineered celebrities could pull off.

"Just a cup of coffee, thank you," I said with a smile. Houshous gaze switched to Taihou.

"Earl Grey tea, please," Taihou ordered.

"It'll be no problem sweetie,' Houshou said in a sing song voice as she disappeared behind the counter.

"Let's sit here," I said plopping myself down into a booth. Taihou sat on the other side. I pulled out my laptop and set it on the table so that we could both see the screen.

"So you know a lot about carrier operations right?" Taihou just nodded in response.

"Well that's good, because I have a lot of questions to ask and you seem to be the best person to get answers from. So question one, does it matter what angle I launch my planes?" I inquired.

"That depends on the situation. In general, the higher the angle you launch your planes at, the less energy they have coming out, but they will have a higher altitude and a longer range. So if your being attacked that would be not the right choice since it would leave your fighters vulnerable, as compared to launching them on a flatter angle. If you are launching a strike against another ship, then a higher angle is better. That's just in general, there are a lot more factors that go into the best angle," she explained. I was taking notes while she talked.

"What are those other factors?"

"There's a lot of them to list," She trailed off, she looked a bit pensively at me. I wondered if that was an attempt as disuasion or a warning. I chose to interpret it as a warning

"You have my ear as long as it takes. I need to learn this somehow, and it's better here than out on the water," I offered.

"Well, the first factor to consider is…" Her answering and my question asking session proceeded smoothly for a whole two hours, it was interspersed with bites of breakfast, sips of hot drinks and note taking on my computer. My little fairy had her bites of food and had scurried off in the middle of our talking.

This experience allowed me to draw two conclusions. One, I was seriously out of my depth and would need a lot more than just a week to gain all the information I needed to even come close to the proficiency level of Taihou. This meant my reading sessions would have to be a lot more intensive and longer. In turn this meant that my shitty sleep schedule would probably get even shittier.

Secondly, I found myself shocked at how pleasant it was to talk to Taihou. It seemed behind the reserved shell, was a highly intelligent, driven, and focused person. It was a shock at how human she was, even though it shouldn't have been. It was obvious that they were human, but it seemed that until now my mind hadn't gelled with that reality. It had a lot more implications that would require more consideration when free time wasn't as rare. For now, all that mattered was getting strong enough to stand on my own and roll with the punches of whatever came afterwards.

Our conversation was cut short by the appearance of Captain Faulkner. He informed us that today and everyday during our forced pairing we would be sortieing together at this time for the majority of the day. It would be my daily penance for my mistake.

The mission that followed was a massive letdown, but not in a bad way. Our force contained Taihou and I, and an assortment of others whose names I didn't learn and in due turn never talked to me besides the most basic necessities. The mission itself wasn't anything special, we sailed around in a grid pattern for half a day, encountered no one, and did nothing. This gave me the opportunity to practice my skills in aircraft launching, condition reading, and mental management. Taihou would quiz me about all the factors we had talked about and what the optimal strategies would be.

This led to me having the brilliant idea of having some of Taihou's bombers and fighters run mock attacks on me, and my own Wildcats having to defend me. Our planes didn't actually shoot, but it was obvious when a plane would have been knocked out. My own planes were completely shredded in most of the encounters. The other fleet members seemed to be highly entertained by these acrobatics and also my constant defeats. The ooh's, ahh's and other standard peanut gallery responses truly made for an invigorating learning environment. The cheeky taunts that sailed out of Taihou's mouth, were excellent at both pissing me off, and making me work my mind harder.

I only started having any success when I stopped trying to copy what Taihou's planes were doing, but instead tried implementing the tactics that I had experienced in my dream the previous night. This proved to be totally obvious, and I noted to myself that I would need to start talking my dreams more serious. High speed hit and run tactics proved to be the first workable solution in counter Taihou's planes. Successes on my side were still limited to getting more attackers shot down before I was inevitably hit, but I was getting better. Only when the sun was touching the ground, did I score my first win against Taihou's attackers by surviving and shooting down most of the attackers.

I celebrated in the totally mature way of asking Taihou, "How do ya like being served that can of whoopass!"

To which she responded with the extremely reasonable question of, "I dunno you've tasted it the most! Gimme your expert review!"

It was after our professional exchange on who better tasted cans of whoopass in both quality and quantity, that whatever tension between us that had existed at mornings start had been irrevocably destroyed. The rest of the mission was passed with less animated discussions of tactics.

My labours were not over for the day though. As soon as we returned to Yokosuka, I was shanghai'd from the fleet by Faulkner to participate in his physical training program of hell. My new body was still weak and lanky, Faulkner didn't seem to really care. He ran me through 3 hours of running, pushups, situps, and whatever other workouts would be the worst for someone who's tired, hungry, and still nursing a bad sunburn. I knew these would probably help me in the long run, but I really fucking hated Faulkner for putting me through it.

This was followed finally by a short dinner, shower in the American quarters, and a beer. The last hours of the day were filled by intensive readings on whatever information I could dredge up about American carrier aircraft, Japanese carrier aircraft, and whatever other information seemed useful. It was a shallow surface level exploration, which was balanced off by my finishing the overview books on the pacific war.

This allowed me to update my roadmap of tasks. I added American carrier aircraft as an area of increased research, and I created a section of experiments that I would need to conduct at some point. I added several combat scenarios to that experiment section that now seemed important to ensure my own survival. I would need to do a lot more aerial sparing with Taihou, if I wanted to get any good at my new job.

The last piece of work I did was creating another new document titled ' _Aerial Combat for Dumbasses'_ In it I started listing maxims, tips, and general ideas of how aerial combat seemed to actually work. This had a twofold benefit, for one it made it easy for me to condense and focus the storm of ideas I had swirling in my head down to crystal clear points, this would make my own knowledge retention more effective. It also would make it easier for any new human carriers, knowledge and experience transfer was a big failure point for the US during the war in the beginning and then later Japan in the later stages of the war.

I would not be making those mistakes, so that in turn meant I had to document everything. It was a lot like programming, in the sense that clear and detailed documentation early in a project would save lots of time and work later down the line. It was just a massive pain in the ass early on, but soon it would pay massive dividends.

I finished all my work around 3am, before climbing into bed and summarily passing out.

I was snapped awake by a pounding noise. Keeping the streak alive, I jerked and slammed my head into the top of my sleeping cubby. The flowing stream of curses from my mouth was then interpreted as a welcoming gesture, as the door cracked open and Taihou's quizzically head popped through to examine me as I cradled my head. I greeted her.

"How do you guys not slam your head every morning in these fucking coffins," I groaned. She moved into the room as she answered.

"I never had that problem," She said with a shrug and a smile. I sighed.

"Figures. Soo breakfast?" I pointed my thumb over my shoulder towards where Houshou's cafe roughly lay.

"Yep, breakfast" She affirmed.

"Gotcha, let me get dressed then lets go," I said getting out of bed. Taihou stepped out closing the door behind her. I changed into a shirt and shorts. We left together, this time conversing the whole way about the art of fighting.

Breakfast was nice. I had compiled a lot of questions during my attempt to write my book on aerial combat, most of which Taihou answered clearly and concisely. She also helped edit some of the items I had written in my aerial combat guide. The two hours passed quickly, but they were productive and even fun.

The sortie was basically the same as the one yesterday. We sailed around, didn't find anything with our scouts, and spared with our aircraft. I did much better today than I did yesterday, with my win ratio jumping from a three percent to a strong 20 percent. The tactics I was now employing were having the desired effect, but I was still very outclassed in skill. The difference now being that I knew why I was losing, and could dissect my mistakes on my own.

I still didn't talk much to any of the other ships, but now I had firmly settled into a groove with Taihou. We had a shared interest relationship, that was pretty geeky, in that we both talked near constantly about things related to the craft of being a carrier, and nothing else. When we had first started sparring she was kind and encouraging as I had failed, but as I had gotten better she dialed up her trash talk a lot. Myself, being the kind gentleman that I was, upped the ante with even better smack talk. Thus went the day, with lots of intelligent and deep discussion, and loads of smack talk. It was a ton of fun. The sortie went by fast, which was a good and bad thing.

I followed the routine set out yesterday. I worked out with Faulkner, ate dinner, and then spent a long time writing and documenting what I had learned. It sucked, but I was having fun and the suckage was still novel.

The next morning went very much the same. Taihou woke me up, I smacked my head, and we ate breakfast. The sortie was extremely normal as it was the same thing we had done the past two days.

This humdrum was broken up in between one of our sparring matches.

Taihou perked up.

"Two Abyssal destroyers spotted! That way!" Taihou pointed off to her right.

"What do we do?" One of the destroyers asked. Taihou had been made the flagship for all our sorties.

"Nothing, Midway-san and I will take care of this," Taihou stated in a cool voice. It was a near 180 from the joking fun tone I had gotten used to. She turned towards me.

"What do you think we should do?"

"Why are you asking me?" I responded.

"This is a test. Tell me what you think we should do right now?" Her eyes drilled into me. It was off putting, I had gotten used to the relaxed, smack talking, buddy Taihou. I had forgotten that she was also a warrior, even more of a warrior than a buddy. It was odd.

"I'm waiting." She demanded. That snapped me out of my musing and got my head into thinking mode.

"We should probably launch extra CAP fighters for protection, along with a small strike to take out the two destroyers before they can radio our positions. I think at least," I offered up.

"Acceptable, but you also forgot to mention launching more scouts towards where those destroyers are traveling and where they are coming from. They could be either scouts or rearguard units. We have to assume both and thus check both options," She corrected me.

"Right, yeah. Okay, so let's launch some extra CAP fighters." I loaded the clip of my fighters into my rifle. Since this was going to be a CAP situation I launched my Wildcats low to the sea, and then allowed them to climb up.

"That was a mistake, you should have aimed them high."

"Wait why? I thought, CAP fighters should have more speed and energy when they are launch?" I was confused.

"They should, if your currently under attack, they are only vulnerable to attack if there's a clear and present enemy to attack them, otherwise this is a case where aiming them high would make more sense. Since they can climb faster, and build up speed right now with now chance of an enemy attacking them," Taihou added on as she launched her CAP fighters.

"Oh that makes sense."

"Now what kind of strike should we launch?" Taihou tested me.

"Errm, would one with 5 dive bombers and 5 torpedoes planes each be right?" I guessed.

"Perfect!" She beamed, before adding on. "Any escorting fighters?"

"Uhhhh. 3 each?" I had no idea.

"Perfect again!"

"Okay, so we should launch them at a high angle. First fighters, then dive bombers, then torpedo bombers. This will give the heavier torpedo planes more fuel and time in the air right?"

"Yeah, your group will attack first. Will you target both destroyers or just one?" She was loading her crossbow magazine.

"Both?"

"No, it's better to definitely kill one than to leave two partially damaged."

"Makes sense. Ready?" I queried. My head was already beginning to ache from the rapid ramp of mental commands it was having to issue.

"Yep. Launch now," she commanded. I squeezed the trigger. Firing several bursts into the sky, I launched my aircraft. Now instead of all my aircraft flying in a blob formation, they all formed clean chevrons all pointed towards the enemy. Taihou launched her aircraft, which climbed up and formed up behind and above my formation.

"Good formation discipline," She commented.

"It's easy peasy," I lied. It was a massive mental pain in the ass getting that communicated to my planes, and an even bigger pain in the ass ensuring that they kept the formation.

"Now time to launch the scouts. You check out that area," She pointed to a direction to the left of where our strike force was headed.

"Got it," I aimed high and launched 6 Dauntless to go scout the area. Taihou soon after launched her scouts.

It took twenty minutes for our strike force to reach the destroyers.

"Here they are." I stated the obvious. My planes upon spotting the enemy picked the lead ship and got into their attack positions. The Dauntlesses were first to strike. They dove out of the sky and released their bombs. Their accuracy just wasn't up to stuff, all the bombs missed.

"Fuck!" I growled.

"Don't worry. It's fine that happens," Taihou reassured. Before I could snap out a response, my torpedo bombers made their attack run. They were also unlucky and inaccurate, but this time they landed a single torpedo on the destroyer. I groaned.

"You got him!" She reassured. Her planes made their attacks. Planting two bombs in the rear destroyer and one in my weakened target. Followed up with one torpedo hit on both of them. Both sank soon after.

"Good job we got them both. You did great," Taihou complimented me. It seemed like she didn't want me to get into a self critical mode.

"I have to get better at attacks. Otherwise, I'm going to continue to be a dead weight. What did I do wrong?" I became self critical anyway.

"You were okay. Don't sweat it."

"Fine," I conceded.

We didn't find any other Abyssal forces and returned to base soon thereafter.

As was routine I got kidnapped by Faulkner and was forced to exercise within an inch of life. I must have been going nuts, because it felt way easier this time to work myself to death than it did usually. I must have been getting stronger. Dinner was the usual fare, decent and eaten too quickly.

By some almighty power, I was able to drag myself to my room. The desire to work did not come to me though. I had been in a state of near constant mental work the past five days, and I was sick of it.

So I just turned on my speakers to a decent volume and relaxed to music. I kept my music selection more modern. I wasn't in the mood to try experimenting with my memories using old music. I just laid on the floor and stared at the ceiling.

Everything was strange. Where I was at the moment didn't feel real, it seemed like it should have been a wacky dream that I'd wake up from any moment. Five days ago I was a college kid on a dumb study abroad trip. I was going to live a normal-ish life. I'd return back from Japan to Boston, see all my friends that I'd left behind for a semester, graduate in a year, get a job, and go out into big wide world ending up at best as a footnote in some history book about some greater person or discovery.

Now all that had been thrown out the window. I was a somewhat willing volunteer to a massive inter-species war effort, global icon of human resistance, and now maybe permanent military assets. I didn't want to be ungrateful, but it was annoying. It was really annoying to have the entirety of one's life plans go up in smoke. I was now locked into this fight for the long haul, whether it be six months or six years. So where did that leave me?

I didn't have an answer for that question and one probably wouldn't appear for a while, so it would probably be best to not worry about that abstract depressing shit. I did have some problems that were more solvable, how to fix my bad schedule, how to get the rest of kanmasu to not hate me, and what my short term plans should be.

For problem one the answer was obvious, get through this period of hell. After, I had repaid my metaphorical debts I would have a lot more leverage to demand better working hours, or at least a Saturday evening off. So it would come with time and patience.

For problem two, it was another easy answer. Don't fuck up again. Be calm, be competent, and be conciliatory. Three C's that if followed, would probably let me repair most of the damage my earlier stunt created. The hard part was being all three of those character traits, which I barely exhibited at moment. I was never calm, I was a long way from being competent, and I thought I was right so conciliation would be me just lying through my teeth, which wouldn't help. So this was an item to be punted for future me to consider.

Finally, that left my goals. That was an easy question in one sense, become competent. Learn how to be a good carrier, and do that until I'm on par with the other carriers. If the question was in regard to relationships and romance. That was more difficult to answer. Mostly, because right now I was too tired to give a shit and didn't know anyone who really merited that consideration. I mean obviously Taihou was an option, but that felt a lot more like a friendly co-worker relationship over any other possible interpretation.

There were too many unknowns to make any good predictions at the moment, that was the frustrating part. I didn't have enough information to make any kind of informed judgement, on basically any of the problems confronting me. So that left the only option of either putting them out of my mind and not caring until I had to care, or hopelessly worrying about them until new information made my worries come real or made them disappear. Obviously, I defaulted to the least healthy option and continued to worry.

I soon was tired enough that I gave up on doing any work and just crawled into bed and passed out. I didn't have any dreams that night.

The next day was more of the same. I woke up, smacked my head, got dressed, met Taihou at Houshou's cafe, and went on patrol.

This patrol we happened upon an Abyssal task force with an enemy carrier, two heavy and light cruisers and several destroyers. It was a bit of a letdown. Taihou and I beat off the enemy air strike, then launcher our own strike which sunk the carrier and a heavy cruiser. The Abyssal task force broke off after that and our own force returned home. I went through the routine of exercises and dinner. I did my reading and went to bed. I thankfully didn't have any dreams that night.

This mundanity in life was only broken the next morning.

"The other carriers will be done repairing tonight, so you are going to have tomorrow off," Faulkner said. He had come by Houshou's cafe while Taihou and I were doing our usual meeting.

"Huh?" I said, not believing what I had heard.

"You have a break tomorrow. This is the last day of constant work," Faulkner repeated.

"Holy fuck," I mumbled. I was free, well almost free. But fuck it, it was good enough.

"I can see your happy. Do your duty, and don't slack off," Faulkner finished, before turning and leaving. I was going to be free. From that point on the day went by in a blur. We didn't encounter any Abyssals during the patrol and in turn had returned home. I went through my daily sports movie training montage sans being sped up and set to cheesy music.

It was after this that I deviated from my routine instead of swinging by the cafeteria for food, I instead escaped the confines of the base and came face to face with the real world for the first time since I had become an apparent international celebrity.

Initially, things seemed to have not changed. People would pass me by and hardly give me even the slightest glance. It was amazing, maybe all the cautionary tales of fame that Hollywood had crammed down the collective throats of people were all lies. My hope that this was the case was a fleeting fog that was instantly burned off. An old lady formed the morning sun that annihilated my cover by asking if I was the young man she had seen on the television.

As if a psychic wave went out through the city suddenly eyes started to focus on me and registered my identity. It was just my luck that I was in a particularly busy street with a lot of pedestrians near me. I was mobbed.

It was a half hour later that I had managed to extract myself from the mass of humanity that had coalesced around me. I had bargained for passage by appeasing the fickle mob mood with countless pictures, selfies, and other platitudes that defined fame in the new modernity. My trip down the street would continue at an agonizingly slow pace as I would have to stop, smile and generally interact with every Jane and Joe Schmoe walking down the street.

Eventually, I did managed to make it to my goal, a liquor store. Fortunately, the store owner seemed either too tired or too old to give a shit and allowed me to get a case of beer and some other spirits normally. My trip back went even slower, more people had swarmed to the area in the probably social media bomb that had gone off due to my presence.

I did eventually make it back home and to my room. I had forgone dinner for beer and a soon to be sleep. My hopes for this were shattered when a heard a knocking at my door as Taihou barged into my room.

"You didn't eat dinner." That statement forming both an accusation and a justification for being present.

"I got all the dinner I'll need," I waggled the first can of beer that I had opened.

"That's not food"

"Sure it is, it's liquid bread that makes in-laws bearable. Want one?" I picked one from the case and waggled it.

"Oh you know it," Taihou said as she came further into my room. I tossed the can to her, which she fished out of the air expertly. She popped the top and took a long draw from the can. "That's the good stuff," she said sitting down across from me at the table.

We sat in silence as we both took sips from our drinks. I was a bit shocked that she hadn't rammed me with questions, but I guess she was going to give me plenty of time to get to the point.

"This shipgirl stuff fucking blows," I complained.

"Yep"

"I mean fucking honestly, this is the worst. All we do is wake up, eat, fight, eat, sleep, and repeat on and on. Its utter garbage. If I have to go on like this for 2-3 years I will go nuts."

"Mhmm" Taihou grunted in acknowledgement.

"How the hell do you guys not go nuts? I'm only a week in and totally fucking sick of it." I said taking a big gulp to finish off my beer. I grabbed and opened a new one. Taihou shrugged when I was facing her.

"Mostly everyone has a reason to fight, some fight to protect those who already are fighting, some fight because they like it, some because their too naive or ignorant to know anything else, and some don't have any reasons and are just as fed up as you." Taihou took a long pull from her beer and motioned for another. I obliged her.

"Where are you on that spectrum?" I inquired. Taihou again shrugged.

"I just don't want to be such a dead-weight as I was last time. You can judge where that puts me on the scale."

Things became silent again as we both sat around taking drinks lost in our own thoughts. I would again be the one to break the silence.

"This is really fucked up," I said staring into the ceiling.

"Yep," Taihou responded.

The rest of the night passed in a similar quietness. We together burned through half my case of beer before the alcohol and exhaustion took hold of me and I passed out on the ground. My dreams that night were wonderfully banal.

I was awoken by hard knocking at my door. Captain Faulkner's voice pierced through the flimsy wood.

"Wake up. Your free day has been cut short."

"Huh?" I groaned as my sore body came online. I heard the sound of the door opening as my bleary eyes tracked Faulkner peeking his head through. His eyes scanned the room before looking at my and a point across from me. My eyes followed his gaze to see Taihou coming awake in similar fashion to me across the table. His eyes also scanned over the beer cans and other alcohol strewn about the room.

"You have an hour to get yourselves sorted and in front of Goto's office. Don't be late."

"Hey what's happening?" I asked him as I tried to get my aching body standing.

"You have some new trainees coming. Your no longer the only human with ship abilities." He said before pulling his head back through the door and shutting it.

My eyes turned to Taihou who was looking at me. I shrugged. Now standing up, she also shrugged.

* * *

AN cont: Finals was a lot more draining than I had expected so I lost a lot more time to get this done than I expected. Hopefully, updates will stabilize as now I'm a more stable place schedule-wise to write consistently. Anyways, this is the end of the first arc of this story in that this is the setup and introduction. In the next chapter we will be introduced into a wider array both humans-turned kanmasu and original kanmasu. As is always reviews are always extremely appreciated, and any criticism is welcome.


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